Meet the hero, Devon Audley, Duke of March of my new release, ENGAGED IN SIN.  In this scene, Devon has just been woken from a nightmare by the heroine, Anne Beddington… “I mean what did you do to me that made me leap up and slam you onto the ground?” “I—I brushed your hair out of your eyes.” “Exactly.  It was an inconsequential touch, but it set me off like a flame reaching a keg of gunpowder.  I’m mad.  The war, the battles, the blindness, the killing and the grief—I wasn’t strong enough to let it all just glance off me.  I’m no war hero—all throughout the damned thing, I was filled with pain and fury and grief and doubts.  A hero is a man who is filled with confidence, who takes action and doesn’t waste time on remorse.  He doesn’t hide in the blasted dark.  He gets a damned grip on himself.  But I can’t.  I’ve gone out of my wits, and I’m going madder by the day.  I’m not getting better, I’m getting worse.  That’s why I have Treadwell to scare people away.” “You are drinking too much,” she said firmly.  “That is probably why you are getting…

My grandkids are getting to the age where we feel comfortable taking them on excursions without their parents. In August, hubby and I decided we would pick up the two boys (ages 6 and 3) on a Thursday night and have them sleep and take them to a water park nearby. The boys sleep together at home, so naturally, they wanted to do that here…with me. Have you ever slept with a 3 and a 6 year old in one bed? Legs and arms go flying, bodies somehow get upside down, and both boys are jammed as close to me as they can get. I get about 8 inches on the edge of the bed, and even then, I usually have squatters. That’s a whole other story, though. Anyway, the six-year old (Grayson) fell asleep watching some cartoon, but the three year-old (Caden) was not about to give up without a fight. After all, he’s at Nana’s house, and all rules go out the window. What happens at Nana’s …stays at Nana’s. After the cartoon ended, I shut off the TV and of course, he fussed. Cuddling him close, I told him the story of Goldilocks. When I was finished,…

Merry Christmas to everyone at Fresh Fiction! Okay, so Halloween is barely over and Thanksgiving is the next holiday but at the Brown house in Davis, Oklahoma it’s Christmas because my holiday cowboy book, DARN GOOD COWBOY CHRISTMAS is now on the bookshelves. The Spikes & Spurs series is surrounded by one big extended family down in Ringgold, Texas that takes in friends as well as family. This Christmas they’re all rooting for Raylen and Liz to get past all the speed bumps that life keeps throwing in their way and figure out what everyone else already knows. And that is that they belong together. Liz was raised in a traveling carnival that left the panhandle of Texas every March and didn’t return back until after Thanksgiving. She was home schooled by her mother and aunt in the carnival and traveling was her way of life. She had wings but she craved roots so every year she sat on Santa’s lap and asked for one thing—a house with no wheels. Then when she got older, she added one more item to her short list. She wanted a sexy cowboy of her very own. Her Uncle Haskell left her the house,…

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. I started with this concept of a historical romantic adventure trilogy, which would have taxed me enough. I mean, I’ve never written a series before. I’ve always thought I wasn’t organized enough. And mostly, I wasn’t. But I had tested my wings on my faery trilogy as Kathleen Korbel for Nocturne. I ended up having a great  time flinging characters around and intermixing story lines. I even realized that my muse was still working, because I would write something in the first book without knowing what it meant, and voila! In the third book it played out(I can’t tell you how comforting that was.) So, I thought. Easy peasy. I can do another trilogy. But then, as I was writing BARELY A LADY, all of these extra people started showing up. And most of them were manly spies. Okay, I thought. That’s fun. But focus on the trilogy. You have enough people you’re playing traffic cop for to get distracted. Nah. Right in the middle of NEVER A GENTLEMAN, the other men started to really separate themselves into different personalities; they each had a different task. They had backgrounds I…

It’s axiomatic that protagonists in romantic fiction are going to have to face their worst fears. They’ll be forced by fate (or the author) into the one corner they most desperately want to avoid, and they’ll have to do the one thing they never, ever wanted to do–only to emerge worthy of a happily ever after. When I started writing the Windham sibling books, playing the role of fate was great fun: The Earl of Westhaven started off as an orderly fellow who liked think his way through problems and take care of all in his ambit. He eschewed (other people would say avoid, but this guy is a ducal heir so he eschews) emotional situations, and regarded it as his lot to bear up manfully under His Grace’s queer starts and unreasonable expectations. Oh, what fun it is to write… by the end of THE HEIR, Westhaven was getting tipsy with his brothers, had shouted his father into a heart seizure, been confounded by problems he could not solve, and frustrated by the one woman who would not allow him to take care of her. He was also a man capable of loving and worth loving. His brothers fared…

Who doesn’t love a good scare around Halloween? But I think most of us prefer an episode of Ghost Hunters or monsters in a scary movie. The warriors in my Scottish paranormal series are well acquainted with monsters. Part of a secret society created by Michael the Archangel, these warriors are all that stand between humans and the demons who hide among them, sometimes disguised as neighbors and friends as they plot to destroy the world. There are many orders of demons, from Halflings, lesser and full demons, to Demons of Old, who are so powerful they can’t be destroyed or suspended in a time vault, unless it’s by a warrior who has been matched to the demon’s strength. And these warriors are strong. With above average senses and skills, they’re well equipped to fight. There’s Faelan, the most powerful of the warriors, the only warrior who’s ever been assigned two ancient demons. Born in the 19th century, Faelan was trapped in a time vault and slept for 150 years, waking to a strange world filled with modern technology and even stranger, modern day females. He came from a time when females were to be cherished and protected, not fight…

Hi everyone, This is Rayka Mennen, and I’m here to talk to you about my new book–ENCHANTED DESTINY from Entangled Publishing. I’m so excited about the great reviews this books is getting. As I make the rounds of blogs and websites, I’ve talked a lot about this book. But it occurred to me that I haven’t done it from the perspective of Jake and Kat – my primary characters. So I contacted Jake Taggert and asked if he would do a quick interview with me. Here’s how it went: RM: Jake, thanks for taking my call. Sounds like you’re pretty busy this week. JT: Sure. Yeah, got another contract with the city. RM: Hey, that’s great news. You’ve gotten quite a few from the City of Chicago recently. Do you think they feel guilty about your almost accident? JT: Could be. I mean I could have gotten killed because some moron didn’t know how to secure storm pipes in a truck. RM <shuddering>: I know, but hey, it all worked out. JT: And thanks for that, Rayka. It was worth it since I met Kat. RM: Anytime. So, I thought our readers might like hear about your journey getting together…

I’m so excited to be part of the fabulous Montana Mavericks series.  I love that it’s set in a small town in Montana and the way everyone knows a little bit about everyone.  Not everything, but a little bit.   The heroine in the book, Abigal Cates, is part of a big family.  She has several older sisters and one younger brother.  One of her sisters, Laila is a beauty queen and actually dated Cade Pritchett, the man that Abigal has secretly been in love with for ages. Abigal makes some pretty bold moves and finally gets Cade to look at her as more than everyone’s favorite little sister.  But he realizes he’s not right for Abigal and breaks off their relationship.  This is devastating for poor Abigal and she instinctively turns to her sister Laila, who offers her a place to sleep for the night, a cup of tea with honey and booze, and a lot of sympathy and encouragement. This started me thinking.  Are there people in your life that you stepped up and encouraged when they were down?  How did you do it?  Flip side, are there people in your life that encouraged you when you were down?…

My friend and writing partner Susan Sey and I have often discussed the alpha hero. What makes him hot. How to keep him from becoming a jerk. How both of our husbands are alphas, even though they are completely different men. We are romance writers and the sort of people who like to analyze things, so naturally, we can spend a lot of time on this subject. But our conversation often comes down to this: if we’re writing an alpha male, what is his essential characteristic? How do we know when we’ve gotten him right? First, let me debunk a myth: an alpha male doesn’t have to be handsome to be sexy. We have all sorts of great examples of sexy alpha males who aren’t pretty. Take Hugh Laurie — not the prettiest man alive, but I bet you wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers. 🙂 His looks are almost immaterial; there’s something about him that makes him sexy, regardless of the breadth of his shoulders or square cut of his jaw. So what is that thing that the sexy alpha hero has got to have? Absolute, unmitigated, and totally-deserved confidence. Alpha men know they are good…

Thanks so much to Fresh Fiction for hosting me today as I continue the celebration of my latest release, ROMANCING THE COUNTESS! I have a confession to make: I never thought I was going to finish this book. You see, when I was first approved to write the story, I was a little over 5 months pregnant. The original due date (for the book) was when I would have been 8 months pregnant. Some women are happy-go-lucky everything-is-swell when pregnant. I. Am. Not. At 28 weeks, I went into the hospital with early contractions. Fortunately, they didn’t go anywhere. This continued off and on until I was about 34 weeks, with several hospital visits. When I’m pregnant, my joints ache. I am…well, let’s just say…unwieldy. =) It’s hard to get up. It’s hard to sit down. In fact, I could hardly bear to write because all I wanted to do–and I mean ALL I wanted to do was to lie in bed. Sitting at a desk (even if it was a very comfortable chair) was excruciating on my body and exhausting for my body. Truly, it was pathetic. We won’t even start in with the blood pressure issues. And–here you’re…