A lust/hate relationship. Ever have one of those? He infuriates you, but turns you on. You can’t decide if you want to strangle him or have your way with him. You really don’t understand each other and don’t seem to have much in common, but can’t keep your hands off each other. Find angry sex satisfying? It’s all angry sex. Mercy, lust/hate relationships are hot. When you’re involved in this type of romance, you find you’ve never felt more alive. Or infuriated. Or confused. Or passionate. I highly recommend you give it a try. For about a month. After that, you’d better find something more substantial to build your relationship upon than burning lust and righteous anger. The problem with passion that rages like an inferno is that it burns hot and quickly consumes its fuel. Oh, but it’s so great while it’s last. And if you can make that kind of passion last a lifetime, without killing each other… Well, you’d better stock up on your energy drinks. In my most recent novel, ROCK HARD, the heroine and hero start with a lust/hate relationship. That hot, I-want-you, I-hate-you, go-away, don’t-leave-me, take-me, don’t-touch-me-you-jerk, I-can’t-get-enough-of-you kind of relationship. Well, the heroine,…

There’s a perfectly delightful movie about an Archangel with a screenplay by Nora Ephron called MICHAEL . In an interview subsequent to the film’s release, somebody (inevitably) asked Ms. Ephron if she believed in angels. She replied something to the effect that no, she certainly didn’t, but they were terrific to write about. She’s right. They are. After initial terrified trepidation—my response whenever I start a new project, whether it’s angels or not—I’m having a wonderful time with my Beaufort &Company series from Berkley Prime Crime. My protagonist, Brianna Winston-Beaufort, is a newly-hatched lawyer who discovers that she’s inherited her Great-uncle Franklin’s legal speciality; to handle appeals cases for souls condemned to Hell. Bree is a rational woman. Her chosen field of expertise is corporate tax law. She’s twenty-eight when the series begins, with a gym habit and a much-loved, if annoying little sister and warm-hearted parents with a habit of loving interference in Bree’s affairs. Like her creator, Bree is frankly skeptical about the appearance of beings from the afterlife in her present life. And again like her creator, Bree quails at the beginning of each new case. Although I began my writing career twenty-five years ago with two adult…

Dear Reader, There are only three little days until my new book, SLOW DANCING ON PRICE’S PIER, arrives on the shelves! Years and years ago, I worked at an independent coffee shop in New Jersey. It was a busy shop that always smelled fantastic. The baristas were quirky and fun. The coffee was fresh and hot. The customers knew us by name. And yes—the clichés about writers-artists-baristas are true! When it was time for me to choose a backdrop for a new love story, I couldn’t think of any place more perfect than a coffee shop. (If you don’t know about the history of coffee, pick up my book. I promise you’ll never look at a cup of Joe the same way again.) And to make things extra romantic, I decided to set my heroine’s coffee shop on a busy pier at the water’s edge in Newport, Rhode Island. Here’s the story: Fifteen years ago, Garret Sorensen’s family, trust, and heart were destroyed when Thea Celik betrayed him and married his brother. Now they are divorcing. Garret’s ready to finally mend his relationship with his brother. But being back in Newport, Rhode Island, triggers a lot of memories—all leading back…

I get asked quite a bit about what I’ve learned while writing. Where the Highlanders came from was my biggest surprise, for historically, they share little with the Lowlanders, but I never truly understood this difference until doing research on THE RETURN OF BLACK DOUGLAS. I’ve always been a bit of a stickler when it comes to research, in that I love history, which is why I chose to write Historical Romance, and I truly love doing the research.  THE RETURN OF BLACK DOUGLAS it was the earliest time period I have written about, being set in 1515.  My biggest surprise was in learning where the Highlander’s came from and how they fit into the big picture that most of us have of Scotland. The early history of the Highlands is sketchy at best, and this is due, in part to the fact that the Scottish Highlands were thought of as the backwater of Europe, and not worth much regard.  The Highlands were also in a remote part of Scotland, where travel was difficult.  There were no “roads” there in this time period, only trails.  Because of this, historical information on the Highlanders and their clothing, customs, etc., is almost…

I’ve moved a lot. I’ve moved so many times that I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve moved. I know it’s over fifteen times, which is rather ironic because I spent most of the first twenty years of my life in the same city. Then I married a man in the Air Force and life hasn’t been quite so settled. Ironically, I’m not a person who craves change and new things. I prefer to be in familiar surroundings. With each military move, I went reluctantly, but once the boxes were unpacked and we settled into our new life, I grew to like the new place—well, that’s a true statement for most of the places we’ve lived. There were a few locales I couldn’t wait to leave—and that’s the good thing about being a military spouse, if you don’t like the assignment, you know you’ll be moving on soon. As painful as the frequent relocations were for me, they also provided a rich background for my mystery series. I grew up in Texas and, despite what you might think, I did see snow. Great wind-blown drifts of it would pile up next to our garage when huge snowstorms swept down…

I write hot. Steamy, burn the bed [or insert alternative J] down hot. They’re romances first and foremost though. For me, I really believe the love/sex scenes of a book are crucial to the developing relationship in a romance novel. Yeah, you guessed it. You won’t find any closed doors in my books LOL. It’s during these most intimate moments people are perhaps at their most vulnerable and it provides tremendous opportunity for a writer to further the story and develop the characters. What they say, how they touch, their reactions, how they’re effected…all provide rich insight into the characters, their histories and how they’re changing at that moment. A love/sex scene should be important to the story, perhaps a turning point, but at a minimum divulge something about one or both of the characters either to the reader or to each other. It shouldn’t be included ‘just because’ it’s about time they got down and dirty. No, it has to have a specific purpose. At least in my view. AND it also has to be completely consistent with the characters and who they are. This is kind of a pet peeve of mine as a reader. Whatever the characters…

You know that commercial that ends with the question “What’s in your wallet?”  Mack Tanner, the hero in my newest release YUKON WEDDING has something in his wall.  As a matter of fact, his new bride-of-convenience Lana is sure he has secret somethings stashed in every room of their new home.  Mack’s got serious trust issues where banks (and gold miners and women for that matter) are concerned.  It was fun to take a man who has been alone too long and invade his life with a feisty woman and a frustrating-but-adorable toddler. Mack buries a treasure to keep the world from getting at his fortune.  As a matter of fact, he goes to all kinds of trouble to keep the world from his gold, but if I told you the details I’d ruin the story for you.  Be assured that much mayhem takes place before Mack realizes he needs a bit more trust in his life (and in his soul). All that hiding got me thinking, though.  Where would I hide a treasure?  Now I’m not talking about hiding the chocolate, where you stand inside your pantry and swallow down the Hershey’s to say “nothing” when your preschooler asks…

With TEXAS BLUE in April I’m releasing my 31st book and my 24th Historical Romance.(My book video for TEXAS BLUE is out today) I’ve been a National Bestseller since my third book and on the USAToday and NYTimes lists since book 16. I have the Harmony Series going in mainstream fiction and sales are equaling my historical sales already. As a bestseller in two running series, I’m being asked over and over what the secret is and I’ve given it some thought. A few years ago a writer visited Amarillo to give a speech. She said, “I’m excited to be in the hometown of Jodi Thomas for here must be very rare air indeed.”In one way she was right. Writers do develop in rare air, but not pure air. Most people who make their living writing have stumbled, tumbled until they are covered with scars. The bumps they took molded them into what they are as writers far more than simply talent did. First, those who succeed, treat writing as a profession. Writing is only half the game, the business of writing is the other half. A woman asked me if she should take a class. (She didn’t feel she…

2010 was an exciting year for my book list, and I expect 2011 to much the same. Needless to say, since I write mysteries, I tend to do a great deal of reading in that area. But I have broad ranging tastes. Still …. Let’s start off with a taste of historical fiction. I enjoyed Rebecca Cantrell’s follow-up to her award-winning debut novel, A TRACE OF SMOKE. A NIGHT OF LONG KNIVES picks up the story of her heroine Hannah Vogel, a female reporter in the male-dominated world of 1930s Nazi Germany. It is a worthy successor, and I look forward to the release of the third in this series, A GAME OF LIES, this summer. Back in 2008, I was living in England, and I picked up a book titled THE SHAKESPEARE SECRET by J.L. Carell. I’m a nut about novels involving Shakespeare, since my first published novel had been MURDER ON THE TWELFTH NIGHT, starring the Bard as a Holmesian figure. Carell did a great job at building an intriguing modern plot around Shakespeare’s life. But in 2010, I discovered the sequel: HAUNT ME STILL, by Jennifer Lee Carell. This is a marvelous book that explores Shakespeare’s life…

Since I wrote a mystery novel about a reality show, many people assume that I am a diehard reality show fan. I watch them now and then, but my favorite shows are actually sitcoms. Once in awhile, my husband and I catch a rerun of Wife Swap and find it amusing. There was one episode featuring a mom entrepreneur who was obsessed with preaching about health, vision boards and positive thinking. My husband said, “Wow, she’s you on steroids,” and I was particularly intrigued by that episode. We have also watched Undercover Boss a couple of times. Despite finding the occasional reality show interesting, I don’t watch them regularly, basically because we don’t have enough room on our TiVo. So why did I write SINK OR SWIM, which features a personal trainer who appears on a reality show? Frankly, I find our culture’s fascinating with reality shows an interesting phenomenon and the idea for the book popped into my mind. I wanted to explore what could happen when a normal person becomes thrust into the limelight, and why someone might try out for a reality show in the first place. In the book, ambitious personal trainer Cassidy Novak has always…