My book, AN UNLIKELY COUNTESS, came out at the beginning of the month and it’s great fun to see it do so well. It will be #17 on the New York Times bestseller list on Sunday, and the Sunday after, it’ll be #13. Onward and upward! The reviews have been mostly great, too, both from review sites and from individual readers. Some quibbles have surprised me, however. I want to make clear that I never resent negative opinions about my books. Of course I want readers to love them, but I know I can’t please everyone, and I respect differing opinions. In the end, a novel is a creation of both the author and the reader, and each reading is valid. But all the same, I sometimes don’t quite get the problems a reader expresses. A few readers find Prudence a snob. For those who haven’t read AN UNLIKELY COUNTESS, at the beginning Prudence Youlgrave has come down in the world and is living in a slum on very limited money. You can read the second excerpt to see what I mean. (I also have the opening scene here, of you want to read both.) As you’ll see, she doesn’t…

I’ve been writing a long time. My first published books were historical romances. Then I wrote books for young teens and middle readers. Now I’m writing historical fiction again but this time for the inspirational market. ANGEL SISTER is my twenty-first published book. Several more of my books are in the publishing pipeline and then, I regret to say, some of my manuscripts are stuck away on my “nobody loved the stories but me” shelf. That’s a lot of story ideas. At times I worry my story well might run dry. Especially when I need a new idea and I’m stumbling around in the dark of my mind just hoping I’ll bump into something to light up my imagination. Sometimes that new idea was right in front of my eyes all the time. A part of my life. That’s what happened with ANGEL SISTER. I’d written some stories with a setting based on my growing up years and had fun with that. So when I started trying to grab hold of a new idea, I recalled all my mother’s stories about growing up during the Great Depression. Wonderful stories of going to school barefoot, roller-skating on the highway, and taffy…

Thank you so much for inviting me to guest blog today at Fresh Fiction. St. Patrick’s Day has always been a special day in our family. My grandfather was extremely proud of his Irish heritage. His father came over from Dublin, Ireland June 19, 1871 when he was 8 years old. I recently discovered the passenger’s list on Ancestry.com and found out that he was a passenger on the ship Calabria. I wanted to add a special twist to the characters in all of my books, by using family names and my Irish heritage. The heroine in my first book, THE MARSHAL’S DESTINY, was named after my great-grandmother, Margaret Mary Flaherty. Three generations of the feisty Irish-American women in our family: Garahan, Flaherty, Daly and Purcell, with their sharp tongues, hard heads and big hearts have kept our family strong and definitely helped influence the creation of the fictional Margaret Mary Flaherty. My latest trilogy from Sourcebooks: The Secret Life of Cowboys begins with TYLER, the oldest brother’s story. I love writing trilogies and series, that way I don’t have to suffer through withdrawal when I have to say goodbye to the characters who have kept me company while I’ve…

One of the biggest challenges for me in writing the novels of my Messenger series is world building, mainly because I don’t. Well, I thought I didn’t. I almost always pick a real place in my very own contemporary time period in which to set my novels, paranormal or not. If I have to make up a place, I tend to base it on a real one and change the names to protect the innocent and/or guilty. That way, I don’t have to create it. I can look at maps. I can read about it. I can visit and check it out. This has, of course, occasionally backfired a little. Like the time I was shooed out of the Pocket neighborhood in Sacramento by the police. I hadn’t thought what it would look like to have someone cruising slowly up and down the residential streets of a fairly affluent neighborhood, peeking into backyards and taking pictures of the houses. Anyway all’s well that ends well, right? I didn’t even have to call anyone to go my bail. I am, surprisingly to some of those who know and I hope love me, a fairly methodical writer. I plot. I outline. But…

“So tired of the straight line And everywhere you turn There’s vultures and thieves at your back And the storm keeps on twisting You keep on building the lies That you make up for all that you lack.” Angel – Sarah McLachlan Such a sad song. But so inspiring, so uplifting. I have strange affinity for this song. According to sources, Sarah McLachlan wrote it in response to the heroin overdose of Jonathan Melvoin, from Smashing Pumpkins. He was only thirty-four, another life cut short by addiction. It’s a fitting eulogy for a friend. Oddly, Smashing Pumpkins song Disarm inspired my very first attempt at a novel, so I find the symmetry agreeable, to say the least. As I was beginning to write SO CLOSE THE HAND OF DEATH, I heard Angel. I must have hit repeat fifty times. I knew, immediately, that this was how my main character, Taylor Jackson, was feeling. In a word, she’s miserable. And misery isn’t a normal state of being for Taylor. The story was conceived after I heard the song, and those particular lyrics. The words just spoke to me, the tone of the song overwhelmed my senses, and I knew exactly how…

We first introduced the Còig, a coven of Scottish witches in TALL, DARK and WOLFISH in May of 2010 with Elspeth Campbell’s book. Then we met up with them again in THE TAMING OF THE WOLF in November 2010 with Caitrin Macleod’s book. Technically 2011 is the year of the vampyre for Lydia Dare, however it could just as easily be called the year of the witch. Although each book in our new trilogy features a vampyre hero, the heroines are the remaining members of the Còig. We thought the best way to introduce you to the other three witches was to let Elspeth (now Westfield) and Caitrin (now Eynsford) do the honors. After all, who knows these three better than their coven sisters? Elspeth – Well, how should we start this? I doona want ta say somethin’ that will make one of them angry with us. Caitrin (snorts) – They’re usually angry with me for one reason or another anyway. So I’ll start. I suppose I’ll begin with Blaire Lindsay, since she is first up in IT HAPPENED ONE BITE. Blaire can fight better than any man. She is proficient at archery and swords, and she has the power…

Maybe trite, a tad cliché, but too true not to reiterate. Change applies to everyone, across races, zip codes and income brackets.  So whether you’ve come to Fresh Fiction as a writer or a reader or both, I hope you find value in this post. If you are a writer, your life revolves around change.  Whether pubbed or pre-pubbed, writers all deal with those shifting plot lines, that character who insists he will absolutely not wear loafers, the disappointment of losing a critique partner or turmoil of diminished writing time. If you’re published there are even more areas for potential change, such as needing to write in a new genre, changing your voice or adopting a pseudonym.  What happens if your agent gets pregnant and goes out on maternity leave, or your publishing house reorganizes and you find yourself with a new editor, or worse, the house drops the line you write for…and you have no editor?  This industry constantly changes cover art, titles, release dates, promotional offerings, conference dates… I could go on, but I won’t.  My point is that change is unavoidable.  It’s not a matter of whether or not it will happen, but when.  The more you anticipate…

It isn’t often that woman gets to become a virgin again.  Man, is it fun! My name is Emily March and my debut novel, ANGEL’S REST, is a March release.  It’s the first book in a series I’m writing for Ballantine called Eternity Springs.  The second book, HUMMINGBIRD LAKE, arrives at bookstores on March 22nd, with the third book, HEARTACHE FALLS, coming April 27th. So many wonderful things have happened since this first book came out.  It’s been released as an audiobook–as an Audible member with two accounts because I buy so much this is a real thrill.  It’s been chosen as a featured selection for Doubleday Book Club and is available as a ebook and in large print, too. The biggest thrill for this debut author to date came when I learned that ANGEL’S REST had received a coveted starred review from Publishers Weekly magazine. As an author with twenty-two previous books under my belt with no previous PW starred review, I was ecstatic. Which brings me back to the whole virgin thing. Before ANGEL’S REST and my Eternity Springs series, before I was Emily March, my name was Geralyn Dawson.  As Geralyn, I’d been  a USA bestselling author…

Anthony Weston came to me as I lay on the hospital bed waiting for the first of three surgeries that would lead to a hysterectomy six weeks later. There I was, tucked into an oversized blue and white print hospital issue with an IV in one arm, beeps, buzzes, and scuffing footsteps pushing me toward a migraine. Without glasses or contacts, I could see about three inches in front of me and that’s a generous estimation generous. I didn’t even have the calming voice of my husband next to me as he’d been shuttled to the waiting room. I did the only thing a writer can do at a moment like this – I closed my eyes and thought of my next book, or more to the point, my next hero. I love creating heroes, the wounded kind that ‘bleeds hurt and been done wrong’ – the kind every woman wants to heal. My mind wandered, the noises quieted, and there he was, Mr. Anthony Weston, in his proper attire and perfectly tied cravat. When he popped into my head, I didn’t know the details of his painful history, the lowly beginning as a stable boy with an empty belly…

Happy Thursday, ladies! Thanks for stopping by to share a few minutes of my WHAT I DID FOR A DUKE release tour with me. 😉 I’ve been having a wonderful time so far—I’m so thrilled and touched by the astonishing reviews—the Perfect 10’s, the Starred Review from the Library Journal, the Desert Island Keeper status from AAR, A grades from Dear Author and other bloggers, the Top Picks….everyone has been incredibly lovely about it. I love the story, so this makes me indescribably happy. 🙂 Let me tell you a little bit about the story, in case you haven’t had a chance to read it yet: WHAT I DID FOR A DUKE, the 5th book in my Pennyroyal Green series, is the story of what happens when the powerful, dangerous Duke of Falconbridge, he of the mystery-shrouded reputation and reputed black heart (he poisoned his wife, they say), embarks on a campaign to avenge a great loss and betrayal, for the one thing London society knows about him for certain: no one crosses him without consequences. When Ian Eversea does just that, the duke believes the punishment should fit the crime—which means the duke has plans for Ian’s youngest sister,…