Thanks for inviting me to guest blog here at Fresh Fiction, I am so thrilled to be here! I decided to talk about my inspiration today. Where does it come from? When does inspiration hit me? I tell ya, it’s a lot simpler than people think. I tend to creep people out. I don’t set out to do it, and I certainly don’t mean to come across as creepy…but I think I do. You see, I have this fascination with asking people inappropriate details about their relationships. Where did they meet? How did they know their significant other was “the one”? What was their first kiss like? What was their first time like? Where was the craziest place they were hit by the mood? My close friends know to expect these kinds of questions from me, but newer acquaintances are usually put off by my strange curiosity. It usually leads people to believe that I am a strange, mildly perverted woman with no life. And, well, the strange and no life part are correct. But perverted? No! I’m just a writer. You see, as an author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction, I seek out little romantic details in everyday…

Hello Fresh Fiction Fans! My name is Wendy S. Marcus. Thank you for joining me at the 19th stop on my blog tour to promote my debut Harlequin Medical Romance, WHEN ONE NIGHT ISN’T ENOUGH. Today I’ve chosen to share with you a day in the life of a crazily obsessed, easily distracted, newly published author. (That would be me.) 7:15 a.m. I roll out of bed, make sure my youngest daughter is up and getting ready for school, and head downstairs to turn on my computer. Then I check my personal and professional e-mail accounts, answer what needs answering and delete what needs deleting. 7:30 a.m. I hand my daughter her lunch, kiss her good bye, and, as she walks to the bus, yell motherly things like “Work hard.” “I love you.” And “Don’t walk through the grass. Your feet are going to get all wet.” (She doesn’t listen – at least to the walking through the grass part.) 7:35 a.m. The crazy obsession begins. You see, to a new author, (well, to me in particular) it’s all about the numbers. Sales rankings on Amazon. Likes on Facebook. Followers on Twitter. Friends on Goodreads. Stars on reviews. Words written…

I went on a mini-book tour last month, visiting middle school classrooms to talk about my new book, being an author, and writing as a hobby and career.  Sure, I am there to promote my books, but more importantly, at least to me as an author of middle grade fiction, I get to hear their stories.  I find that strange, wonderful, awkward, exciting time of life I call tweenagehood endlessly fascinating and inevitably complicated.  Middle graders hover uncertainly between childhood and becoming a young adult, and it ain’t easy! I think back to my own years as a tweenager, I have such clear memories of sixth and seventh grades, and I believe I became me during those years.  I decided I was good at English and bad at math.  That I wasn’t pretty, but I could be smart.  I decided I would be funny, and that I would develop a signature that was totally illegible and therefore exotic and mysterious.  Adult.  I decided I was not a patient person.   All those choices, that self-defining that went on in middle school, charted my course in high school, college, and beyond.  I avoided taking challenging math and science classes, felt sure I…

Twenty five years ago I started my first novel, MAGNIFICENT PASSAGE, a sexy western romance set in the eighteen-sixties.  Today the book would be considered an old-fashioned Bodice Ripper–a name derived from the sensuous covers revealing the heroine’s, half-exposed heaving bosoms. In the eighties and before, the romance genre was wide open.  There were no taboos, nothing was considered politically incorrect.  The hero was all-man and the heroine was pretty much at his mercy. Women got spanked, men pushed seduction to near-rape limits.  Back in those days, men were men, and women knew it.  Today’s equal-opportunity women often disapprove, but Lord those books were fun. I wouldn’t write this book today.  Male, female roles have changed drastically since MAGNIFICENT PASSAGE was published in 1988.  In the nineties I wrote mostly historical romances set in Regency England, far tamer faire. Currently, I’m writing Contemporary Romantic Suspense.  My Raines Brothers Trilogy, AGAINST THE WIND, AGAINST THE FIRE, and AGAINST THE LAW, came out January, February, March, and AGAINST THE STORM will be out the end of October. But western romances like MAGNIFICENT PASSAGE were all the rage back in the eighties.  Having come from a family that included a grandmother who was…

I’m delighted to be here at Fresh Fiction today – thank you for inviting me! If you could trade places with any of your characters in JUST ONE SEASON IN LONDON, which would it be – and why? What a fun question to think about! I’ve had quite a tough time answering it, because all of my characters are like me in one way or another – they all have pieces of me in their makeup. But telling you the ways that my characters resemble me isn’t really answering the question, is it? So if I had to pick one character from JUST ONE SEASON IN LONDON that I’d like to swap dancing slippers with, it would be Sophie Ryecroft – and not just because she dances divinely and I don’t. Sophie is very young, a bit naïve, and gorgeous. But the part of her I like best is her pragmatism. She’s extraordinarily practical and clear-sighted. Even though nobody’s told her just how badly off the Ryecroft family really is, she knows that the situation is desperate – and she’s determined to do everything she can to make things better for her brother and their mother. She’s not vain about…

Recently, I was involved in a discussion with a group of romance authors about what we think is sexy. For instance, would you find a celebrity who wouldn’t make People Magazine’s top 100 list, but whose humor and confidence are a “ten” to be hot? You can imagine the responses some of these word mavens came up with. It was the equivalent of sitting around with a group of BFFs, tossing back margaritas and watching The Chippendales. Overall, though, the answers were shocking. Yes, that’s right. Women don’t define sexy through looks alone. Many factors come into play. On my Facebook page (yes, I’m addicted and force myself to log off long enough to reach my word count goals for the day), I held a poll, asking my friends this very question. What do you find sexy? There the answers were very far from the world of television, cover models or glossy magazine ads. These are real people sharing the down-to-earth things that turn them on. Here’s a short list: Hands Eyes Class Humor A big ole chest Wordless hugs A man who’s dirty and sweaty from a hard day’s work… Mmmm, brings to mind delicious construction workers and firemen…Oh!…

I’m excited about my new Special Edition because it features a heroine who’s not a baby person.  She’s more of a “call the nanny person”.  Unfortunately, the nanny isn’t always available, which means Princess Bridget Devereaux has to deal with twin baby boys on her own.  (Muffled dirty laughter) I can laugh because I’ve been through the challenge of dealing with cranky babies.  MY OWN!  I didn’t have twins.  One at a time was more than enough.  I didn’t have a lot of experience with babies when I gave birth.  I was lucky because my mother came and stayed with me for two weeks to help me after my son was born. The day she left, he started wailing and crying and I didn’t know what to do!  Thank goodness, after a while, he calmed down and so did I.  Along the way, though, I did the jiggle dance when I held him, sang, rocked, patted and crooned, drove around in a car and put him in the magic swing that always put him to sleep. I remember the days of putting the babies down and then hearing them wake up crying five minutes later.  My mother told me it…

So, imagine the biggest family reunion ever, where the amazing people in your life gather at a hotel.  Nobody has to clean up.  All the meals are at amazing restaurants at some mega-cool tourist site.  Best of all, you get to catch up with so many people at once. Sound awesome?  You bet!  And that’s what the Romance Writers of America (RWA) annual convention feels like to me – the coolest kind of family reunion. I joined RWA when I lived in Shreveport, Louisiana back in… (cough, cough, long time ago, don’t want to age myself too much, LOL!)  Since then, I’ve attended annual RWA conferences held in DC, NYC, Denver, Reno and Dallas.  And it’s always the highlight of the year for me, catching up with my “family” of romance writers and readers. This year’s conference was held in NYC and I hope you’ll enjoy my “family reunion” photos.  I started off the first morning having coffee with reader friends I met years ago through the incomparable Suzanne Brockmann.     The time in between was amazing too – four booksignings – where I got to catch up with readers.  Remembering face to face time with readers is a…

Myths, curses, and legends have always fascinated me. Could some actually have been based on truths or were most simply figments of the imagination? Naturally, my interest had me researching which led me to Joseph’s Campbell’s book THE POWER OF THE MYTH. Once I read it, my own imagination took flight. I had been searching for a special heroine for Reeve MacAlpin the hero in my current book LOVED BY A WARRIOR. It’s the second book in my four book Warrior King series, BOUND TO A WARRIOR being the first. I got the story arc for the series just as I was finishing up the Sinclare brothers’ series. The four MacAlpin brothers are on a mission to see that the true king of Scotland claims the throne, one of them being the true king. They each pledge not to fall in love until their mission is complete. Naturally, that doesn’t happen. Love decides to find them whether they want it to or not. I needed not only unique heroines for each brother, but extraordinary ways to bring the couples together. Duncan, the hero in BOUND TO A WARRIOR found himself chained to the heroine in the first half of the…

May 2010 On Sale: May 4, 2010 Featuring: Will Connelly 336 pages ISBN: 0425234622 EAN: 9780425234624 Paperback $7.99  Add to Wish List Thriller Buy at Amazon.com Best First Book (ThrillerFest) Nomination The Insider by Reece Hirsch Will Connelly, a corporate attorney in a big San Francisco law firm, who is on the verge of making partner. Will thinks that becoming a partner will solve of his problems but, in fact, his troubles are only beginning. In the week after being elevated to partnership and taking over a major technology merger, Will becomes the prime suspect in a colleague’s murder and an unwilling participant in a complex criminal scheme that involves the Russian mob, insider trading and a secret government domestic surveillance program. A debut novel that puts an exciting twist on the legal thriller Excerpt Chapter 1 No matter how many times the police asked Will Connelly to recount the events of that morning, his story always began—and ended—with the same details. At six thirty a.m., he swiped his access card at the security desk in the lobby of his office building, then rode the elevator to the law firm’s offices on the thirty-eighth floor. The hallways were empty, and…