I’m currently living in a small town in the Midwest. I’m not really a small town girl. I have nothing against small towns; I’ve just always lived in cities. I feel at home in the city. I like having a lot of things going on around me. I like choices. Lots of choices. I’m a shopper and need the stimulation of many different stores within a short distance from me that I can wander into on the spur of the moment just to see and touch pretty things. I’m a people watcher and love knowing that every day when I go out into my world there will be many new people to observe, in many different walks of life, doing many different things. I need an international airport nearby so I can fly off to exotic places. And I like city living because of the anonymity. I can be out in the city and never be seen. Never be noticed. I can live in the city and not have anyone else in my business. You can imagine then, my culture shock, when I find myself living in my husband’s hometown, population 12,000. I’ve learned to love many things about small…

In June of 1988, I created the beginning of the Morgan’s Mercenaries/Morgan Trayhern saga series. Back then, no one had done three books in a row and I was the first to do this with  Harlequin/Silhouette. Now over 50+ strong, I have set my sights on creating a second one. This is the Jackson Hole, Wyoming saga-series. It is about Wild West, stories about cowboys and the hardy men of this region. I refer to the second saga in short hand as JHW. I often get questions from readers about “How do you create a saga?” It’s not easy. There’s a tremendous amount of thought and planning that goes into it.  The first prerequisite is to have a backdrop large enough to put a whole cast of characters on. Secondly, there has to be a focal point that readers want to read. In Morgan’s Mercenaries, these were about men and women who were on the edge of danger as they fought and loved. In JHW it involves a fascinating town set beneath the shadow of the mighty Teton Mountains of western Wyoming. And forty miles north of Jackson Hole is our most well known park, Yellowstone. I spent many years…

I had a really successful May. I read and loved BLOWN AWAY by Sharon Sala. I have to be honest here, and say that I’ve been stockpiling Sala, but haven’t really had the desire to read them. However BLOWN AWAY was a wonderful book, and really reminded me about what had drawn me to Sala in the beginning of my reading journey. I also read the concluding book in the Chicks With Sticks trilogy by Heidi Betts. KNOCK ME FOR A LOOP was a fun romantic romp. If you haven’t yet read this trilogy I strongly suggest reading in order so that by the time you get to KNOCK ME FOR A LOOP you understand the relationship between the hero and heroine. I hope that Ms. Betts continues to write romantic comedies for a long time to come. I could go on and on with the titles that I read and had trouble putting down in May, but I don’t want to bore you. I will however tell you that I read THE LIES WE TOLD by Diane Chamberlain. I believe this book to be classified more as Women’s Fiction than romance, but was swept up in the story, and…

HarperTeen kicked off the first week of summer with the Supernatural Summer Tour.  This is a six day whirl wind tour that includes Kansas City, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, & San Diego with five of HarperTeen’s top young adult authors. When I caught up with the tour at Borders in Dallas, Texas, the participants for this stop were Kim Harrison (EARLY TO DEATH, EARLY TO RISE), Ellen Schreiber (VAMPIRE KISSES 7; LOVE BITES), Aprilynne Pike (SPELLS), and Kimberley Derting (THE BODY FINDER).  Kelley Armstrong (THE RECKONING) would trade off with Aprilynne Pike starting in Houston.  For at least three of these ladies, it was day three out of the six in the non-stop tour, yet they all greeted their fans with energy and enthusiasm. The evening started with all four ladies perched upon their signing table, giving short introductions of themselves and their books, followed by a Q&A session.  Those in attendance got to find out a little about their favorite authors.  Such fun facts were that Aprilynne was the only one of the four that actually went to school to be a writer but she felt she learned just as much working in critique groups and reading.  Ellen’s biggest…

Good morning! Thank you for inviting me to stop by on my blog tour this month. I Love This Bar is on the book shelves ready for my readers to bust down the book store doors to get at one. Did I mention that my imagination often times runs wild and free and I get these amazing images in my head about how much my readers love my books? I Love This Bar is the first in the four book Honky Tonk series with Hell, Yeah coming out in August; My Give A Damn’s Busted in October and Honky Tonk Christmas in November. The series is centered around an old beer joint in Mingus, Texas called The Honky Tonk and the four bar owners who have no intentions of ever giving up their saloon…and the four sexy cowboys who are determined to change those sassy women’s minds. Daisy O’Dell is the first bar owner you will meet. And Jarod McElroy is that amazing cowboy on the cover of I Love This Bar. Want to read an excerpt that will tell you exactly what happened between them there at the first? Is that a big “Hell, Yeah!” I hear surrounding my…

Have you ever pretended you were someone you’re not? Have you ever masqueraded as someone famous or gone along when you were mistaken for someone else? I haven’t, but I’ve always loved stories where the heroines were in disguise. Think of Shakespeare’s THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, TWELFTH NIGHT, or AS YOU LIKE IT. Those are some of my favorites. And the best part? When the ruse is discovered, of course! And maybe reading Shakespeare all those years ago in high school and college was part of the inspiration for Sarah in my next novel, THE MAKING OF A DUCHESS. Sarah is an orphan and a governess for one of the top men in England’s Foreign Office. She’s a quiet, unobtrusive sort of woman who minds her own business until one day her employer tells her he needs her to become a spy. And the man he needs her to spy upon? Julien Harcourt, duc de Valére. Sarah doesn’t know anything about Julien, which is a good thing. If she knew how wealthy he was, how powerful, how intimidating, or how handsome, she would never have accepted the assignment. She’s pretty reluctant to accept anyway, but her employer makes her an…

I belong to a writers’ goals group. We happen to know each other through RWA, but other than that most of us have little in common. We write in all different genres, some have children, some don’t. Some work outside the home, and some write full time. Some are published, some aren’t. What brought this group about and keeps it together is a common purpose. We all want to reach our individual goals. What makes it work and continue to succeed is how we want the other members to reach their goals too, regardless of what those goals are. And our goals are as different as we are. One member had the courage to pitch to an agent with an unfinished manuscript. When said agent requested the full manuscript, she was honest and said it wasn’t finished. You’d better believe we were there, making sure she finished it! One member had never finished a manuscript. We were already chilling the Champagne, knowing she’d make it–and she did. Another member sold a four-book YA deal on a proposal! You can bet we’ll keep track of her progress. The general public has no idea how hard it is to stick to the…

There are many things I like about reviewing, but the thing I think I like the best is being able to get books ahead of the publication date. It’s really rather funny because it’s also the thing I hate most about being a reviewer, because it seems like I read those books, and then have an even longer wait for the author to release another new title. Recently I’ve been able to read books by Sharon Sala and Maggie Shayne who will both be having trilogies release this summer. In the case of Ms. Sala, her first title BLOWN AWAY is in bookstores. I loved this book, and could hardly set it aside when I read it. The first book in the Shayne trilogy isn’t due until the end of June and is titled, KILLING ME SOFTLY. AGAIN, another read I could hardly set aside! I just love trilogies! They’re the right amount of books to get me fully interested in the characters, and the continuing story lines, but not as many books as the popular J. D. Robb series, so that I can easily collect them, read them 1, 2, 3, and be done. That however poses the question…when…

This is the start of summer in the US, the sorta official beginning — Memorial Day Weekend. Most of the schools are out and if they aren’t then everyone attending has a serious case of “short-timers syndrome.” People are planning their summer vacations, what can we afford, whose schedule loses in the equation, you know, all the things families and friends do to plan out some “FUN.” My family has evolved into doing long weekends for our summer vacations. We’ve replaced school restrictions with job responsibilities and our pets. It was bad enough when you didn’t get any credit for missed days, but why oh why do all businesses with IT require the IT people to do installs and upgrade over holidays? Doesn’t seem fair, does it? But supposedly less people will be online and using the system so perfect time to upgrade operating systems, new development, etc. I know it will be a time when we just hope the hamburgers don’t burn while the guys are on endless conference calls! Then the dogs. Ah, my new babies. Last time we all went away at the same time and had to use a kennel or doggie boarding establishment, one dog…