I first wrote Second Chances in 2005. It was, in fact, the third book I’ve ever written. The experience was not the best for a whole host of reasons, but I learned a lot about myself during the process. About editing and standing up for myself when I felt strongly about something. It was a book I liked writing, a book I got notes about from time to time and when I got the rights back in 2007, a book I knew I’d want to revisit someday. But you know how someday can be. It seems like you just thought about it yesterday and then a year or two has passed and I saw a tweet from Angela James about how she’d been looking for BDSM erotic romance to fit in an October slot. Here I had this book, finished but in need of some revisions and I thought perhaps it was time to drag it out and give it a once over. Angie had been my editor before, in fact, she’s been my editor longer than I’ve worked with anyone else in publishing, how cool is that? Anyway, that does not mean she gives me any free passes! She’s…

The crime scene is more than the chalk outline marking where the victim falls. It’s the world surrounding that pale silhouette, spreading out in uneven ripples from the perimeter cordoned off with yellow tape to the metes and bounds of the jurisdiction that investigates and prosecutes the offense to the ill-defined society that wittingly or not harbors a killer in its midst. The place where these overlapping scenes congeal and conspire is as alive and organic as any flesh and blood character. It makes and breaks promises, rewards strength and punishes weakness. It fills hearts with hope and drains them without a backward glance. Done right, place becomes a central character, casting heroes and villains against a geographic backdrop, driving the action as surely as any twitchy trigger finger. Los Angeles has been immortalized as a place character by authors from Raymond Chandler to Michael Connelly. Dennis Lehane created domineering characters in the Points and the Flats of Boston while Elmore Leonard gave Detroit a singular pulse. George Pelecanos made real Washington, D.C.’s struggle to provide justice for all. New York’s literary parents are legion and legendary. Fictional places are no less powerful characters as Scott Turow and Nancy Pickard…

Holiday season always makes me think about the best times I had, the memories last, hopefully for a lifetime. I surely don’t remember very many toys I received as a child, maybe I didn’t get any? Except the game of Life from my uncle when I really wanted a Barbie doll. I never did get Barbie but I did play Life for many years through my teens. Maybe my uncle made the best choice. I remember my mother was so sad that as the oldest I let my disappointment show. It did teach me something, to never expect something as a gift, that being a role model had its downside, and to always accept graciously. I think I was about 10 that Christmas, and both my mother and uncle have passed on, but their Christmas memory lingers as long as I live and can tell the story. This year my family decided to forgo presents at Christmas but instead go on a family vacation together. It is our first family vacation in eight years and I blame Harry Potter. The opening of the Harry Potter park in Orlando pushed each of us, except my husband who is not a HP…

Fiction writers always hear that we should “kill your darlings.” William Faulkner is the first credited with this excellent advice, and it has been repeated by many other authors, including Stephen King. I’ve always nodded when I heard it, and I’ve lost count of how many times I repeated it to my students.  But after writing six thrillers and three young adult Star Crossed novels, not to mention mentoring many authors, I finally had to  ask myself, “Which darlings?” Here are the ones I believe you should murder first. The Researchitis Darling. How nice for you. You’ve spent a year researching a topic, and you want to dump it all on your reader from Page 1. I can so relate. Thanks to my Cosmopolitan astrologer friend, Hazel Dixon-Cooper, I researched every aspect of astrology in order to write the Star Crossed Series. As a Gemini ruled by Mercury, I got kind of obsessed by where one’s Mercury was located, and what that meant. Mercury in Pisces? Less forthcoming. In Aries? A communication champion who blows rules out the window. In Taurus? Even more controlling. But—and this is a big but—my readers were still working on their Sun signs. They weren’t…

When people think about settings for romance, Detroit is one of the last cities to come to mind. My hometown has a rough reputation, and much of it is earned. When I was dreaming up my Urban Arcana series of paranormal romances, though, I never thought twice about using Detroit as the home for elves, witches, werewolves and more. So why is the Motor City such a perfect backdrop? Metropolitan Detroit’s over 300 year history is rich with industrial success, making it the home of numerous immigrant groups. That diversity could easily include other species. Who’d notice werewolves in Hamtramck (eastern European enclave), djinn in Dearborn (large Middle Eastern populace), or Fae in Corktown? The city is built over salt mines, and salt figures frequently in legend and myth. Now that most of the industry has left, there’s an air of gritty decay. All the abandoned factories full of rusting iron lend ideal settings for supernatural activities. Furthermore police and other city civil servants, understaffed due to budget constraints, often adopt a pragmatic “not my problem” attitude. As long as nobody’s getting hurt, it’s a whole lot easier to look the other way. Why worry about some guy with pointy…

for books…and authors and storytellers. On the day of the year where our nation collectively gives thanks there are a few things that I’m truly grateful to have. One of those and maybe not the very first but near the top of the list is the ability to read. It’s so much in the fabric of my person I don’t realize it’s something not everyone has. I can read, read fast and comprehend quickly. Reading has taught me so much over the years and allowed me to visit worlds I’d never be able to travel, meet people I’d never know, be so happy with my own life and give me a business I love every day, even at 4:30am. Authors and books and publishers of books are wondrous devices that feed my obsession. This year, I’m truly thankful for all of them. Yes, and I’m also thankful for my family who supports me by knowing not to bother me when I have a book in hand and for my strange obsession in reading and meeting new readers and authors. For allowing our home to be opened to visitors each month to talk about books and authors without complaint and actually…

With Thanksgiving right around the corner here in the US and the holiday season upon us, many people are thinking about the things they’re thankful for. Family. Friends. Health. Steady work. Finding a twenty-dollar bill in the pocket of last year’s winter coat. I’m thankful for all of those things. (Well, except for the twenty-dollar bill, which I didn’t find. I checked.)  I’m also very thankful for romance novels. I’m not sure how I’d get through life without them. I’d survive, but my world would be a dreary place. Why am I so thankful for romance novels? That happily-ever-after. While I occasionally read horror or thrillers, I usually want to know ahead of time everything’s going to turn out okay and that the characters I’m about to grow attached to aren’t going to die gruesome deaths. Several years ago, when my husband was going through a health crisis and I needed to distract myself, I reached for a Nora Roberts trilogy I hadn’t read. I knew, no matter how tough life was for her characters or what hardships they faced, I could trust her with my emotions. The main characters would all be happy in the end. The variety! Dark,…

The back cover text for a book is meant to do just one things – sell you the book. I’m super excited about my second novella, HER KIND OF HERO, and the back cover text is… well, super exciting: Kissing him is better than nothing. Young widow Vanessa Bingham is ready to stop mourning. She misses the intimacy and tenderness of a man’s touch. It’s obvious her old friend Derek Lane wants her, so why does her first attempt at seduction cause him to flee? Kissing her is a dream come true. Derek has been in love with Vanessa forever. His feelings have kept him from having a serious relationship—or a casual one—with any other woman. So when she finally turns to him, he doesn’t want to settle for being friends with benefits. But Vanessa is a hard woman to resist for long… Someone doesn’t want them kissing at all. Just as things with Derek begin heating up, disturbing photos start to arrive at Vanessa’s door. Someone is watching her every move: someone she may know. Terrified by the stalker’s very real threats, Vanessa soon realizes that Derek may be just the hero she needs after all. That’s all true….

Hello and a huge thank you to Fresh Fiction for inviting me here to introduce myself and tell you a little about DATING MR. DECEMBER, my US debut for Sourcebooks. One of the best things I’ve found about my first blog tour is that I’ve asked myself as many questions as the bloggers and readers have asked me! The tour has made me think deeply about why I choose the stories and characters that feature in my books. What makes one story or character worth spending so much of my life with? In other words, what really inspires me? I guess I have three main sources of inspiration People I absolutely love watching and listening to them, in cafes, on the train, at the gym, in the queue at the supermarket. Being a writer is the perfect excuse to be nosy and listen to characters from all walks of life. For DATING MR. DECEMBER I visited a mountain rescue team base. Listening to the rescue squad gave me a clue to motivations of Will, the hero of DATING MR. DECEMBER.  The team’s jokiness hid a powerful sense of duty and camaraderie. Those guys see some terrible things and are often…

On the month that my 30th novel comes out I’d like to talk about dealing with being gifted. Over the years, when beginning writers come to me and say, “Do I have what it takes to be a writer? Am I gifted?” I always remember the night I followed my writing teacher out of class. I’d just read my first chapter of my first novel. Handwritten on yellow legal paper. I knew nothing of plotting, viewpoint, characterization or even manuscript format. I’d just signed up for a community class at the college and had dreams of hitting within months. While we walked to her car, I asked her one question after another. I’m sure she was wondering if I could be some kind of writer/stalker by the time we reached her car. With the door open, I blurted out my last question. “Do you think I can be a writer? I mean a real writer.” She smiled (or at least I think she did for we were standing on a dark parking lot) and said, “If you work really, really hard you’ll make it.” I danced back to my car thinking my writing teacher had seen something in me that…