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…

Dear Reader, I was talking to a friend last night at the wine bar and I was mentioning writing a college age heroine, and she just sighed and said, “Wow, college was the best and the worst time of my life.  I had a blast, made awesome friends, partied, crushed on the wrong guy, then fell in love with the right one and had him break my heart.”  She went on to say those four years still influence her now in her early thirties. For me the opportunity to write about those years was too exciting to pass up, because like my friend, that transitional phase of my life altered the course of it.  I almost failed out of college, I defied my parents, I ran off and got married.  It was all crucial to me discovering who I really was, how to manage my freedom and my responsibilities, and to accept that sometimes love can be so intense it’s painful.  All of those feelings went in to TRUE, my May release. When Rory Macintosh notices that Tyler Mann is suddenly paying attention to her, she just thinks the tattooed bad-boy feels sorry for her, the shy girl.  But she…

There are some taboo subjects in the Christian writing world—some that just don’t get discussed as if they don’t exist. Honestly, if you look at the inspirational book section at Wal-Mart, you might think we’ve all turned Amish. Women in the church today get boob jobs. Men struggle with porn addictions. Abortions are kept secret. And ministers have been known to cheat. It’s the truth. So I wrote about it. But, as my former agent would say, I wrote it in a way that “makes the tragic entertaining.” Yeah, Bethany is struggling with forgiving her father for running off with his church secretary. And yeah, she starts to fall in love with her own pastor who is counseling her to forgive him. But instead of focus on her own issues, she gets into an assortment of embarrassing experiences while trying to fix others—splitting her pants at a cosmic bowling alley and exposing her white underwear beneath the black lights, running into her crush when trying on maternity clothes over a fake baby belly, and overdosing on fruit punch when fasting with the results of acting drunk. It’s a humorous look at the lengths Christians can go to in the effort…

I researched the novel on Jezebel’s life, REIGN, for two years. Then I had to throw the first draft in the trash. When I threw that in the trash, after two years of research and writing, I thought I was getting a fresh start. This next attempt to tell her story, I thought, would be so much better. I was wrong. That draft ended up in the trash, as did the next. Three times I started fresh, and three times I had to admit that the final product stank. I had not yet figured out why the story was so hard to write, and I needed a faithful friend and editor to point out my blind spot. So why does bad writing happen to good writers? (If I may be so bold to include myself!) There are perhaps a thousand reasons, but I ultimately what I know is this: writers need community. We need other people to show us our blind spots and push us past our comfort zones. A great editor can do this, but I can never assume that I will be assigned a great editor. For me, a critique group has become a major saving grace, an…

My husband and I have owned our house for about four and half years and in those four and a half years, we have redone our backyard approximately 92 times. We have ripped up xeriscaping and added grass. We have pulled out trees and added flowers. We have scraped back rock and laid down pavers. And every time we declare the yard “DONE”, we have no sooner gone back inside before we’re planning the next addition to the yard. I have no idea what is wrong with us. This year, we’ve decided to build a raised garden bed. And as my poor husband has slaved under my Pinterest board inspirations for what this garden should look like, my two-year-old son and I have been planning what vegetables to plant. “How about green beans?” I asked him the other day. He thought for a minute and said, “I don’t like green beans. I think we should plant an ice cream garden, Mom.” My eighth novel, PAIGE TORN, just released May 1st and friends, I have decided that writing is exactly like owning an ice cream garden. It takes months — sometimes years — of hard work. Even just the preparation that…

Have you ever seen the wonderful Danny Kaye movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty? Danny plays a man with a very ordinary life. Actually, it’s a very dull life. To cope with the endless drudgery, Walter simply imagines adventures, and they often intrude in his everyday life at the worst moments. In his imagination, he’s a gifted surgeon, or a combat pilot flying off into heroic danger. Of course, his family and friends just think he’s odd, nervous and distracted. But then Walter gets involved in a real adventure, and his life changes. He becomes the hero he imagines he is. It’s one of my favorite movies, partly because as a writer, I do tend to live my own imaginary life, a lot like Walter does. Well, I’ve never imagined myself as a pilot, but here’s what I mean. My first secret: I never go to the bathroom alone, not even now my children are grown, or even when my nosy cats are distracted. There are a thousand characters in my head, all telling stories, and clamoring for me to write ‘em down, even in delicate moments. (No, there is no schizophrenia in my family. Why do you ask?…

Raindrops on roses are nice, but one of my favorite things is when a reader brings in a beat-up old copy of one of my books. I love to see that the book is worn and well-loved. Not only has this reader enjoyed it, but she has probably shared it with friends and family. Recently, this happened several times as I was signing copies of That OLD FLAME OF MINE across the southeast. Readers come into the store hesitantly, usually clutching the old book. They look around to see if anyone has noticed them brining a book INTO the store instead of taking one out with them. The reader approaches quietly and usually says something like, “I really love your books. I read all of them. I have some favorites.” And the book or books are carefully put on the table in front of me. “I have read these books so many times, but I always seem to miss when you come to sign books. Would you mind signing these for me? It would really mean a lot.” The last time it was THE TELLTALE TURTLE from the Pet Psychic series and an old copy of FRUIT OF THE POISONED…

I’ve never actually been to a Kissing Booth, I’ve just written about one in my new sweet and sexy romance, KISSING THE MAID OF HONOR. I mean what better place for a romance to start than with a kiss on a high school baseball field with one of the star players? Five bucks well spent, right? Uh, not when the boy humiliates the girl and breaks her heart. Fast-forward ten years and Sela and Luke are all grown up and the maid of honor and best man. But some things are hard to forget and despite the crazy-ass attraction between Sela and Luke, there’s this little piece of their past meddling with their present. That’s all I’m going to say about their kissing booth, though, because today I want to talk about the perfect kissing booth. Or as I like to call it… My Book/Movie/TV Boyfriend Kissing Booth. What? You guys have never dreamed about what hot guy you’d like to smooch in a kissing booth? Okay, so maybe I’ve got the whole kissing booth thing on the brain and I’ve recently given some extra thought to the matter. But now that I’ve introduced you to the idea, I’m hopeful…