As soon as I heard that Entangled Publishing was coming out with a steamier category romance line, I knew I wanted to be part of it. After all, who doesn’t love the smexy? Brazen has been described as Indulgence’s naughty little sister, and the description fits! It takes the best of category romance and spices it up, all without losing the core story between two people. This is how WRONG BED, RIGHT GUY came into being. While the book is a story of opposites attract, the whole reason they’re thrown together in the first place is the heroine crawls into the wrong bed. That night rocks both their worlds and sets the rest of the book’s events into motion. Elle bolts, because good girls aren’t supposed to get all hot and steamy with bad boys. She learned that the hard way and has no intention of going through it again. Gabe, on the other hand, sees something in Elle that calls to him on a level he’s never felt before. He pursues her in an effort to see if it’s real, or just part of his imagination. Much hilarity and many smexy times ensue. I’m really, really excited to be…

A story is a living thing. It starts as a germ, not even an idea really, that turns into a bug gnawing in the recesses of a writer’s brain. As the bug grows, eating bits of fluff and the words of stranger’s conversations, it becomes less easy to ignore, until finally it wakes us in the dark hours of the morning, fat and bloated with untapped energy, this thing we must write down or go mad. And that is simply the original idea. The pressure lets off as the words hit the page, but the story still grows. Edit after edit. Draft after draft. Until the finished book only passingly resembles the first bloody words that affixed themselves to the page. HEARTS OF DARKNESS was an organic, struggle of a story to write. I started it during National Novel Writing Month in 2008 and now, almost four years later, have the finished book in my hand. There are crumbs that resemble my first rough sketches of scenes and characters, and there are gems that didn’t make the final cut. I’d like to share with you the earliest scrawls of my debut. Desi’s character changed in the final book, but the…

I’m very excited to be at Fresh Fiction to celebrate the release of West of Want, Book 2 in my Greek-mythology-inspired Hearts of the Anemoi series. This book tells the story of Zephyros Martius, Supreme God of the West Wind and Guardian of Spring, who falls in love with a human woman he nearly kills. I’m not sure why, but heroes are the characters who always come to me first when writing a book. They talk to me the loudest and explain themselves to me the clearest. So I really love writing my heroes, and thought I’d introduce Zephyros to you today by sharing five words that describe him, with the excerpts to back them up! Here we go: Tortured This situation was about to become shit meets fan. For gods’ sake, he currently didn’t have clothes, and until he warmed he’d be lucky to hold a conversation. Naked, nearly incapacitated, with no ability to dock the boat, and with a gravely injured woman on board, he had little likelihood of contriving a convincing story about how they’d gotten that way. His presence was a liability here. He was useless. Again. As the blue-masted boat neared, the captain called out,…

How do you keep things fresh? An important question for any author writing a long-running series. A BREW TO A KILL is our 11th Coffeehouse Mystery, and Holiday Buzz, releasing in December, will make it an even dozen. Fresh inspiration is the key to keeping stories crackling, and my husband and I continually go to a well that never runs dry—the city where we live. New York is also where the Coffeehouse Mysteries are set, in a quaint, landmark coffee shop that’s been a part of the colorful fabric of picturesque Greenwich Village for over a century. Our amateur sleuth, Clare Cosi, manages the place. She’s a single mom, in her forties, and though her daughter is grown, she often acts as a surrogate mom to the oddball collection of young baristas in her employ. For any author of crime fiction, New York is definitely a city that keeps on giving. Having lived here for three decades, I can tell you that it’s filled with quirky people as well as criminal minds. What Marc and I see and hear on the streets of our neighborhood often inspires the twists and turns in the Coffeehouse plotlines. The people of our city…

When I began writing WILD TEXAS ROSE, I felt like I was going home. My footprints were already molded into the foundation of this Historical Romance. I’d been thinking about these characters for years and finally it was time for their story. All four men in this story were damaged by the Civil War but all were going on with their lives believing they’d always be alone. This book is about friendship that always stands fast and how the love of a few women, good or bad, can change a man’s life for the better. This is my 25th Historical Romance, my 35th book and I’m still having a ball. I think what I love most about writing is discovering the characters and letting them tell me their stories. Like breathing , no two people are alike. When I sat down in my study and traveled back to Texas in the 1800’s, I began with Rose McMurray. As a child she drove everyone crazy organizing her world and as an adult nothing has changed. She’s twenty-six and traveled from Whispering Mountain to Fort Worth to help a friend with her wedding plans. From the first, Rose knows something is very…

It’s how she knows the book is going well. I’m sitting off in my writing corner; surrounded by pretty pictures, important sayings, a couple cats, and a bunch of love notes from my lady. Then a laugh just bursts out. I can hear her even now, “You just think you’re so clever.” And she’s right, I do. I laugh, I cry, I get angry when one of my characters screws it all up, and I chortle when I’ve been particularly evil and given them some impossible challenge. I used to be embarrassed about it. As if I was just being foolish, I’d try to suppress it. Then I’d forget myself and find myself wishing I had someone to nudge and wink with. (Thankfully I do. Much of my story lines are worked out while walking hand-in-hand with my wife.) The thing that surprises her every time I mention it is that she’s my audience. She’s the one I hope to make laugh, cry, and sigh. And it works. She’s my first reader (she’s awesome at grammar). And I get to hang out in the corner of the living room and pretend that I’m not perched on the edge of my…

Watching the Smurfs movie (for sadly about the fifth time) I was struck anew by how much more handsome Neil Patrick Harris is as a thirty something than he was as a twenty something. His face has weathered in a beautiful way, full of character and charm. He twinkles like he knows something good.  And that’s pretty damn attractive. Maybe it’s my own age, but I’m taking another look at men of a certain age.  Men who when younger, might not have caught my eye.  As a writer and a reader, I like going on a journey with characters who have some life behind them. I like the “I don’t want commitment” conflict, but it works so much better with someone who has actually been committed and been burned. Or maybe burned someone.  A guy that is aware of all the grey area in life. Men with scars and baggage are intriguing and they make for good reading, but there’s a fine line between an alpha male and a guy acting like a child.  Older heroes can skip all of that –  they can be damaged but  still stand up and do the right thing. Men who are men, I…

Everyone loves the alpha male heroes with which romance novels abound, those men with perfect physiques, perfect good looks, sex appeal to spare, and the aggressive swagger that makes them such a challenge to any woman hoping to persuade them to settle down and fall in love. They are fun to read about, fun to write about, and great to dream about. And of course, they always do fall in love and settle into a monogamous relationship with the heroine. Happily-ever-after is always safe in their hands at the end, and we can all sigh with satisfaction. But what about the poor betas? Is any man without swagger or perfect looks or charisma doomed to the secondary roles in our romances and to the secondary female characters? Can they never be heroes the heroine and an army or readers can sigh over and pull for and–yes–fall in love with? Can they be fun to read about and fun to create and convincing as heroes? Can they be memorable? I think they can, and I have created my fair share of them in my almost 100 books. There is Hartley Wade, Marquess of Carew, for example, of LORD CAREW’S BRIDE, who…

It’s sad, yes, but I have to admit it: I am not a romance heroine. “Why not?” cry those who know me, shocked to the core. Well, let’s be honest, there are traits that appear to be common to most romance heroines, traits and talents that I, unfortunately, do not share. In the interests of brutal honesty, I will reveal them here. First, and probably last, I look absolutely terrible in the morning. And often again by mid-day. Putting on my husband’s largest shirt and padding around in my bare feet and undies will not improve the view, for reals. Nothing on my body ‘sparkles’ or ‘glistens’, no, not even in moonlight. Not my hair, not my eyes, not unless they’re watering because my contacts got something in them. I have hair, not tresses. It does not ‘cascade’ nor ‘flow’ down my back or over my shoulders. On humid days, it tends to frizz; that’s as good as it gets. You can describe every shade of color on my person with a non-descript adverb or adjective. You know the kind: brown, white, hazel, short. I’m simple that way. My best lines always come later. If witty banter is a time-sensitive…

As a very short woman who is contentedly married to a compatibly short man, I have often wondered what it would be like for a petite woman to fall in love with an unusually tall man. My daughter, who is dainty like me, is married to a taller man. Theirs is a happy marriage and they are raising two kids. The difference in their heights is about ten inches. No big deal, right? But what if the hero were a foot and a half taller than the woman who is in love with him? Would it be possible for the two to have a satisfying physical relationship? In the first place, would a tiny woman be able to grab a remarkably tall man’s attention? Common wisdom says “like seeks like,” and that most people are attracted to persons with similar physical characteristics as their own. But what if two seemingly incompatible individuals develop strong feelings for each other? This question ultimately became the theme of my new book, THE RELUCTANT MATCHMAKER. My latest tale is a vivid blend of contemporary Indian-American culture with an unconventional romance—the conflict between two people who are attracted to each other and yet they can’t…