Any book I like well enough to keep after reading it is one I’m likely to read again.  Okay, maybe not this year.  Or next year.  But sometime.  Walking around piles of books in the floor, though, recently convinced me I had to be stricter.  I realized I hadn’t pruned the romance shelves in a dozen years.   The mystery/suspense,  science fiction/fantasy, and general fiction shelves also hadn’t been touched in a long time, but I figured I’d start with the genre that had the biggest overflow. Looking at the books I kept, I realized they all had certain elements in common. They all had romance, of course, but they also involved adventure and action, which some friends and I like to call “boom.”  Maybe the characters have to step into uncharted territories in their lives or go to strange new places or dare things they dread.  Maybe they have paranormal gifts they need to master.  Maybe they’re called to face unexpected destinies.  In some way, though, they must stretch themselves, and that not only creates conflict but carries an element of risk that makes it adventurous. An example would be Kathleen Woodiwiss’s SHANNA.  The story of the hero and heroine’s…

I’m excited about the publication of my Special Edition A HOME FOR NOBODY’S PRINCESS!  This story features one of secret childhood fantasies. What if I were somehow given to the wrong parents?  What if my real parents were royalty?  What if I’m a princess?  Hahahaha!  Truth is I believe I have the best parents in the world. The other strong aspect about this story is feeling at home.  Some people make you feel more safe and secure than others.  I think feeling at home is more about the people than the place.  What do you think?  What place makes you feel at home?  What person makes you feel like home? One responder will be drawn to win a $10.00 Amazon Gift Card. P.S.  If you get a chance to read A HOME FOR NOBODY’S PRINCESS, please write me at leannebbb@ aol.com xo, Leanne Banks www.leannebanks.com To comment on Leanne Banks’s blog please click here.

Asking authors from whence come their ideas is almost guaranteed to receive smart-alecky answers similar to “from my coffee cup.” And we might not even be lying. With a combination of caffeine and the funny quotes on our mugs, we truly can develop entire books. In the case of THE BOYFRIEND FROM HELL and the Saturn’s Daughter series, the idea came from a cornfield. I kid you not. There is something transcendental about cruising hundreds of miles of highway and cornfields that is guaranteed to feed my subconscious. My brain consequently spews back rich idea manure. Mix in a few country songs from the radio and before long…I’m splatting alpha males into brick walls like bugs on the windshield. It was taking an idea from smushed bugs to series concept that really required work. Obviously, killing the potential hero in the first chapter is not the opening for a good romance novel. But it works beautifully for urban fantasy. Where else could the heroine kill her cheating boyfriend and accidentally damn him to hell? Oops!  And then the fun really starts when he comes back to haunt her in her mirror and swears he’s innocent. But with urban fantasy, the…

I’ve been asked more times than I can count now, “Why would you write about humans that could shift into panthers?” And each time I’m asked I have to think on the answer. It’s true that there is no love between myself and the feline species, however, there’s something about the jaguar that gets me every time I look at one. The jaguar, or panthera onca, it has a nice ring to it once you say it a few times. That coupled with the sleek and menacing look they have created the picture of the perfect new species. I figured this new species to be the best of both worlds—drop-dead gorgeous, perfectly sculpted body, fierce protective streak, charismatic and lethal when crossed. That’s an ideal description of The Shadow Shifters. I love the alpha hero, the take your breath away, dominating male that knows what he wants and doesn’t hesitate to go get it. Teaming him up with an in-your-face-independent female is always a task that gets the sparks flying. Dropping them both in a world that will fear what they really are amidst a growing political drug scandal is just the icing on the cake. In the first installment…

This summer, a fiction writer/blogger declared that all writers must revise their books according to reader reviews. Now let me be the first to state that I love my readers. A lot. My readers have given me lots of ideas and motivation. For example, the readers were the first to ask me if Sancho Panza, who first appeared in UTTERLY CHARMING, would get his own story. Hmmm. Write about a guy who resembles Travelocity’s roaming gnome? As the hero? Really? Okay. I decided to give it a go, and that resulted in COMPLETELY SMITTEN. Readers have asked if I would write more about the Fates, and I did in the Fates Trilogy. (You can get all three books in one volume as an e-book.) Readers who’ve finished my latest, CHARMING BLUE, want Tank’s story, and believe me, I’m considering it. (But I’m also rather fond of Ramon and Gunther as well.) Yet I think rewriting to reader reviews is a bad idea. It would be a great idea if every reader said the same thing. But they don’t. For instance, after Sourcebooks offered WICKEDLY CHARMING for free as an e-book promotion last fall, I got two back-to-back reviews. The first…

Sometimes I want to stand up and announce, “Yes, I write romance books and I’m damned proud of it!” But I haven’t yet. I don’t shy away, either. I’ve had more people give me strange looks when I mention I write romance. I usually get hear responses like, “Oh, you write those kind of books.” Or one better: “I don’t read trashy books.” Well, someone is because romance accounts for over half of book sales each year. Which is a good comeback line in case you need one. But just for the record, I write erotic romance with a touch of quirky humor. I want to make the reader laugh, and I want to make them turn the ac down a bit. I want to entertain you, and hopefully, I will. I also write what I like to read. One of my favorite storylines has always been the ugly duckling who turns into a beautiful swan so in WHERE THERE’S A WILL I played around with that theme. Haley, the heroine, lives her day to day dreary life with no hope of change until she does a week’s worth of work for a coworker that she has a crush on….

What do you get when you force two sworn enemies in to a marriage of convenience? Opposites attract and attack! Andreas Ferrante had already chosen a suitable bride and was about to ask her to marry him when he got the news about the conditions on his late father’s will. He must marry Sienna Baker – the woman he has loathed since she was a troublemaking teenager – in order to claim his inheritance. Sienna is the last woman on earth he would ever choose to be his bride! Sienna has done everything she can to avoid coming into contact with the brooding Andreas over the last few years. She knows what she did to him all those years ago was wrong but she also knows it’s too late to undo the damage. But she needs money and it is rather a large fortune to be had! But marrying him? A massive fortune, two strong wills and a monumental attraction that has simmered for years is brought out into the open and it’s fireworks from day one. Andreas and Sienna start out as enemies but eventually find that hate is very definitely a two-sided coin! Do you think love and…

My “first novel” was called INVASION OF THE MUTANOIDS. Yeah, you read that right. I started scribbling it out in an unlined art book in the winter of 1988.  I had just turned nineteen.  I eventually “published” the book myself in the winter of 1998, after being turned down by every imprint I submitted the damn thing to.  In the ten year gap, in addition to being a writer, my job description included: dishwasher, prep cook, adult book store manager, cameraman for a religious talk show, film director, musician, producer of audiobooks . . . oh, and for an entire year, I paid the rent by selling my body to science.  (This was, incidentally, how Robert Rodriguez footed the bill for his first feature film El Mariachi—and when I say that, I mean that this was exactly the way he did it.  See, the medical research lab I volunteered at was the very same place Robert did his time in my hometown of Austin, Texas;  Inspiring, no?) During this ten years, I banged away on the novel, never quite sure if it was done, moving forward in fit and starts, like many young writers do when they are first getting…

Every reader has a keeper shelf tucked somewhere.  A place for those books too special to part with, many of which might be autographed and personalized. But now e-readers are changing the face of the book industry.  What will happen to the keeper shelf as there are fewer print books around?  Several New York publishers are already moving from releasing mass-market (paperback) print editions to purely e-books.   And it’s not just about having something tangible to hold in your hands. There’s a bigger issue. I’ve noticed a disturbing trend at signings these past couple years.  As e-readers grew in popularity, fans who were buying more e-books started bringing their actual electronic reading devices to be signed.  The problem with that is that at some point they would upgrade to a new e-reader and, after years of use, the signature would probably wear off. Fans wanted to meet us–the authors– and get their “books” signed, but they didn’t have a physical book to bring in.  Plus, many bookstores are now requiring readers to purchase a book at their store to attend a signing, and some are either preventing or limiting any backlist books readers would otherwise bring in.  Fans carry in…

Vampires. They’re a subject near and dear to my heart, whether they be sparkly, terrifying, seductive or I-vant-to-suck-your-blood… I don’t care what form they come in. When I decided to write KISS OF STEEL, which is set in a Victorian-era world ruled by the blue bloods of the Echelon, I knew I wanted to use the vampire myth somehow. My blue bloods are gentleman who deliberately infect themselves with the craving virus in order to become elite; making them stronger, faster, invulnerable to illness or injury… and with a thirst for blood. Women are denied the Blood Rites for fear their gentle natures won’t be able to control the strong hungers that develop, their purpose in life to become a blue blood’s thrall – or blood slave. The craving virus gifts its bearers with many advantages but there is also a cost. Over the years the virus eventually colonises the body, and the Fade begins. The first signs are albinism and the faint, decaying stench of rot. Eventually the victim evolves into something more. A creature with no reason, driven only by its hungers and its invincible strength. A vampire. History is full of supposed vampires and their legends. Whilst…