Thank you for having me here at Fresh Fiction! I’m so happy to be here on my launch day, celebrating the release of my new novella Building Magic from Red Sage Publishing. This book is very different from my previous stories, and that’s what I’m here to talk about today, about changing the subgenre’s we write in or what I call ‘Flipping the Pancake’. My first book was Dark Harmony a full length dark, erotic, action adventure romance with vampires and martial arts action. Lots of blood, some great spooky scenes and steamy sex scenes, of course. It took lots of research, and some great goth music to keep me in the mood as I wrote about the shadows in this story. When it was complete and it was time for me to work on a new story, I wanted something completely different. Time to flip. My second story was Alien Revealed a sci-fi erotic novella complete with an alien spy, a starship military hero, out of this world technology and of course, a conspiracy, all topped off with more hot luscious sex. Lots of sci-fi movies, some great comic books and popping mood music kept me going. And when…

Recently I had a chance to chat with a charming book club in Ohio about my last novel, The Dead Travel Fast. They mentioned that they love to extend their reading experiences by taking field trips that somehow relate to their book club selections. They talked about visiting Washington DC after reading Night, and I jokingly asked them if they were planning a trip to Transylvania after reading my book. (I would not have been at all surprised if they said yes. They were one of the most dynamic groups I’ve chatted with, and if any club organizes a trek to the Carpathians, it will be them!) I also had a lovely tweet this week from a reader who is planning an entire dinner party around the release of my newest book, Dark Road to Darjeeling. She’s inspired by the Himalayan setting, and I made her promise to send details of every course—I only wish I could be there too. (It is always a good idea to feed a writer. We sometimes forget to forage for ourselves.) But my intrepid book group and my gourmet reader got me pondering all the different ways you might celebrate a book. I usually…

After years of never remembering my dreams, recently I have been recalling a lot of them when I wake in the morning. I’ll leave it to the dream specialists and psychologists explain why this change has happened. I am just happy to have those vivid images in my head again, and glad for the evidence that I did not stop dreaming entirely. Since they are so vivid, and I remember them in detail, I have discovered something I had not realized before. Sometimes when I dream, I am me. And sometimes I am someone else. And sometimes I am me, but I am in someone else’s head, experiencing what they do even though I am still me. Just like when I read a novel. In a recent dream this happened, and it was so notable that, right there in my dream, the “me” in that dream noticed it and even commented on it. A woman in my dream was climbing up a metal ladder, through a building, the sort of ladder you see in stairwells or utility rooms to permit access to other floors and the guts of a building. All kinds of other things happened, but it was this…

My parents introduced me to books and reading at a young age. As kids, my brother, sister and I knew our nursery rhymes off by heart and loved our parents reading to us. As we grew older, our love for books continued and we branched out, reading by ourselves. I distinctly remember receiving a copy of Enid Blyton’s FIVE ON A TREASURE ISLAND, book one in the Famous Five series, in my Christmas stocking. This was my introduction to mysteries. I devoured this book, reading it many times, along with the other Famous Five adventures. I was hooked, graduating to Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy mysteries, along with anything else that contained mystery and suspense. During my teenage years, on a beach holiday, I ran out of books to read. Disaster! In desperation, and to keep the peace, my mother gave me one of her Mills & Boon romances. They were pretty tame in those days and the hero and heroine were lucky to actually kiss during the course of the book. I enjoyed the book and read several more during the course of our holiday. Back at school again, my friends and I discovered Victoria Holt. (Wikipedia) A combination…

Maybe it’s part of being a writer, but story ideas always seem to be popping up—sometimes under the oddest of circumstances. We’ve just moved, and story ideas are running rampant. For example, our new house is on a culdesac, which means that there’s a circle of concrete in front of the house, and several neighbors both on the sides and behind us. Having moved from a house on 1.5 acres, this is new to me…and my mind is whirring! Anyone see The Stepford Wives? I’m thinking I need to write The Culdesac Husbands? All the suburban moms get together and decide they need the perfect off-to-work, lawn-trimming, BBQ grilling, backyard mowing husbands? (Already I can tell that would be nice, LOL). Or a culdesac version of Rear Window? After all, I can see what my across the backyard neighbor is watching on television through the kitchen window. So what else could I see if dastardly deeds were done? And who’s to say what could come of the fact that we’re a two-story house but most of our neighbors are one story? The possibilities are endless…. It’s that “What If” mentality that marks writers, I think. I know my current series,…

Spies, private investigators, detectives, G-men, Special Forces, firefighters, and so many more I’m missing I’m sure, all carry the same aura or “WOW!” factor for me. Sexy is relative when it comes to just about anything. For example, kilts are sexy—on people who can wear them. On Gerard Butler they’re downright sinful! Now on Uncle Paolo who’s had way too much stuffed manicotti over his lifetime… hmm, not so much. So sexy is as sexy looks? No, I don’t think so. Men in uniform, men who take risks, men who use their brawn for most of the day in their jobs, do it for me, baby! So if I’d started out this way, then this list could include so many more occupations. • The Uniformed = garbage collectors wear them. So they’re sexy? Uh…we don’t see too many calendar pin-ups of them, now do we? • Risk Takers = sewer workers take a risk every time they submerge themselves in sewer systems filled with…okay, sorry, yuck! Sexy? • Brawny Lads = farmers use big huge machines (this may have some of you thinking, hmm, that’s sexy) to do most of the heavy lifting, but hearing a friend describe her husband…

The cover of a novel is the single most important ingredient in the success or failure of a book. This is not something authors want to hear and it is not always true. If the book is special enough and it gets loads of word-of-mouth, even a bad cover can’t stop the book from being a success. If the author’s name is well enough known–and I am speaking here of New York Times bestsellers with very large print runs–a bad cover can’t stop it from being a success. However most of us fall in the category where a cover can make the difference between success and failure. Over the years, I’ve had good covers and bad. One of the prettiest covers I ever had was on a book called MIDNIGHT RIDER. The problem was the cover was completely white. The lovely embossed bird on the front didn’t show up until the reader picked up the book. Not many did! The title was the second half of the problem. It was chosen by the publisher and no amount of talking could convince them to change it. The combination of bad cover and bad title was lethal. On the other hand, I…

One of the ways I sustain myself while on deadline—and folks, there’s a reason they call it deadline—is by making a list of all the really wonderful things I’ll get to do after the book is turned in and I’ve slept for three days straight. I have to say, finishing ONE WICKED GLANCE really took it out of me, and now the suspense leading up to the ONE TOUCH OF SCANDAL release has me on pins and needles. But I am surviving! And today was Day 16 post-deadline. It was time to move down the Goodie List and reward myself. I downed three cups of Café Verona, and I was psyched by 8:15. Now bear in mind that I lead a small life, so the G.L. consists of things like (1) hand prune the Burford hollies and (2) scour sales racks at Talbot’s. But today I looked at the list, and saw I’d worked my way down to (11) go to Dick’s and buy an exercise bike, which was right above (12) bake oatmeal cookies. Now, I ask—which would you do? Let me just say, in my defense, that we are in the midst of an economic recession. Oatmeal is…

Unfortunately for the whole of humanity, I get most of my inspiration for plots from the headlines and real crime stories. And to make up for my being a creative leech, I give a face to the victims of crime and focus on the human spirit in the face of adversity. And my latest release, The Echo of Violence (Avon, Sept 2010), is no exception. I sometimes watch a TV show called “Locked Up Abroad” on the National Geographic channel. One day, I saw the horrific tragedy of Martin and Gracia Burnham. The Burnhams were Christian missionaries who were abducted in the Philippines in May 2001, while at an expensive beach resort celebrating their anniversary. A terrorist group of Islamist Separatists called Abu Sayyaf took the Burnhams as well as twenty other hostages, holding them for ransom. Over a year later, Philippine commandos attempted to rescue the couple and a Filipino nurse. Two of the hostages were killed in the shoot-out and Gracia Burnham was rescued. Her husband Martin didn’t make it through the ordeal. More on this story can be found by clicking here. I was also in the middle of writing my book when the incident at Mumbai…

Earlier this week, I asked the following question on twitter/facebook: What catches your eye more on a cover of a sexy contemporary romance – a hot guy or a couple (man/woman)? I’ll use two of my books, TAKE ME and LOVE ME, as examples. TAKE ME, which was released as a trade paperback five years ago, has a couple on the cover. Do they look like the characters in my head when I was writing the book? Sort of. The hero, Travis, definitely looks like the model in the picture. Big, hunky, gorgeous. But the heroine? Well, considering TAKE ME is a book about a full-figured woman who finally finds her HEA with the man she’s been in unrequited love with her entire life, then, no. I’m afraid she doesn’t really look like the version of Lily that I have in my head. To me, Lily is smaller, curvier, softer. That being said, the art department at Pocket did go back to the drawing board several times with this cover (probably because I freaked out when I saw the initial cover and she looked like a size 2. Barely.) and ended up with this model on the cover. She isn’t…