It may seem kind of silly but I love the character Bronwyn in the “Charmed & Dangerous” series. I’m beyond excited that the first book is coming out in mass-market paperback on Dec. 4. Hopefully that means more people will get to read about this amazing chick. When I first conceived the idea of her, I wanted someone who was strong and didn’t take crap off of anyone. Bronwyn is certainly that. She’s one of the most powerful witches in the world, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her. I like that she has a little bit of an attitude, but she has a soft heart. That one minute she can be caring for an elderly man with Alzheimer’s, and the next she’s blowing up bad guys. Bronwyn is also an adventurer who loves to travel. People ask me all the time if I’ve been to all the places she has – I wish. (Smile) I do a lot of research into places where I would like to travel, and then I send Bronwyn on her way. I like that side of her, where she can adapt to most any situation. She always manages to make friends, even…

The Ugly Duckling. Poor little guy, ostracized by the ducks because they thought he was ugly, not knowing he’d grow up to be a beautiful, self-assured swan. Those ducks made fun of him, ignored him, brought him to tears. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. His offense to reindeer kind? A nose that lit up, something they saw as a liability–and ended up being Santa’s saving grace. Victoria’s Secret models. Who’d have thunk they’d have something in common with the Ugly Duckling and Rudolph? Well, it turns out they do. In a recent story on Fox News, these ideals of female perfection talked about how they were teased for being too thin, too plain, too whatever. It seems when it comes to others, none of us is ever perfect enough. We’ve all experienced that middle school torture, those kids who made seventh grade hell (or freshman year, or whatever). I went through it; my own kids have gone through it. And now, in Really Something, my latest release from Zebra, my heroine, Allie Dean, goes through it, and thinks she is the only person in Tempest, Indiana, to be tortured for being different. But what Allie doesn’t realize is that we’re all…

Yesterday my book, Divorced, Desperate and Delicious was released and I’m tickled pink. This isn’t my first book, but it’s my first novel in thirteen years. Why the long break? Well, I was actively pursuing my career in photojournalism. About six years ago, I decided I was tired of being a one book wonder and fell headfirst into novel writing again. I had totally forgotten how much I loved it. The ideas were pouring out of me, I couldn’t write fast enough. I got book one written, got book two, three . . . I got all the way to book eight. Ahh, but I also got some rejections. Oh, the editors loved my voice, but my plots were always . . . crossing a line. I was too quirky, too sexy, too suspenseful, too something. Yeah, I know, I’m good at crossing the line and pushing the envelope. It’s just how I’m wired. But then I got lucky. (Not that kind of lucky!) I got the most amazing call from my agent. I hadn’t just sold one book, I’d sold four in one day. Dorchester loved my crossing-the-line, pushing-the-envelope quirky, sexy, suspenseful style. Now that was a good day….

Cue the James Bond music and call the Geek Squad! If you like your espionage with thrills, romance and a touch of humor look no further. You’ll find sensuality and sass in my new high-tech action romance, DEAL WITH THIS. It’s lights, camera, action as this novel brings you inside the Vancouver film industry. It’s a fun look at the industry itself while taking you through a rollercoaster ride of spy action and hot romance. And maybe just a little humor. Michelle Buonfiglio of Lifetime TV’s Romance: B(u)y the Book says, “Lucy Monroe excels at creating alpha bad boys and authentic erotic romance.” And Romantic Times gave DEAL WITH THIS four stars calling my characters “sexually empowering.” Truth is, the love scenes sizzle and I worked to make the characters the highlight of every scene. My “alpha bad boy” Alan goes undercover to find out who is trying to auction off international secrets and finds himself on the set of a scifi TV show with the star of the show, Jillian, set to help him whether he likes it or not! I am especially pleased with this novel because of the character development of both the hero and heroine. Alan…

Good morning. I am so pleased to be here blogging to you. You will notice that I use no contractions in this blog. This is because, while reading the posts below, I happened to notice that everywhere there should be an apostrophe, there is instead a question mark. I have no desire for my blog to? appear? thus??? It is very distracting and even crazy-making for someone who is a born editor. Guess I should say why I am here. To promote my new book! It is called The Con Artist of Catalina Island: A McAfee Twins Christmas Novel, the fourth book in the McAfee Twins novels. The McAfee girls are Terry and Kerry; identical in looks, opposite in personality. Terry is a lesbian biker with a prison record; Kerry is a good-girl type who considers herself to be the keeper of Terry. They drive each other crazy but can’t conceive of being apart. Kerry says that when Terry was in prison it was like living on borrowed air. The girls are the proprietors of Double Indemnity Investigations, a two-woman PI firm. Normally they zip around Los Angeles solving crimes from the back of their hot pink Harley Softail Deuce,…

I’ve got a confession to make. The heroes in my romances are usually a prototype of my husband in some way, shape or form. After all, he’s the man I know best and I married him because I obviously find him hero-material. Combining him with a little Han Solo, I had in my opinion a wonderful male. But after many books, I began to think I needed a new prototype. Someone was bound to start noticing that my hot, yummy heroes were all a little alike. So, I started the search for another hero archetype. He had to be handsome, smart, witty and the number one requirement was that even if he wasn’t perfect (in fact, I was looking for slightly flawed), he needed to be okay with not being perfect. I like heroes who feel great in their own skins. I looked and looked and couldn’t find anyone. Months rolled by. I began to despair. Even the issue of People magazine’s yearly Best Looking People provided no new fodder. The men all looked too handsome, too delicate, so perfect as to be uninteresting. Then I saw him. I was meeting my old work buddies (think a table full of…

People are always asking, Where do you get your ideas? Oh honey, if they only knew! Here are some of my favorite idea generators. Eavesdropping. I do that a lot. It’s easy, fun, and good for getting those creative juices flowing. Also, when friends say something intriguing, I let them know that some day their story or clever word usage could end up in a book. Fictionalized of course, so that often they won’t recognize themselves. With strangers…. they’ll never know.Observation. People watching is such a kick. Even more fun is making up stories about those you watch. Why are they behaving that way? Who are the people they are with? I’ll bet even non-writers do this. TV, radio, music and the movies. I’ve been known to take a premise or a snippet of and run with it. The end results never look remotely like the show from which I drew my inspiration. Magazines and newspapers. Tons of great stuff there. Especially those advice columns and the stories of personal triumphs over bad situations. And of course, life itself. Something happens to me or a friend or relative, or a friend’s friend, and I get to thinking, What if? I’m…

One of the questions I’ve been getting asked a lot lately is if my new book, ON THE LOOSE, is still part of the CRAZY series, and the answer is Yes! All of the same characters from Steele Street and SDF, Special Defense Force, are in the LOOSE series of books. We’re still at the chop shop in Denver, dear readers! Much to my surprise, while tramping through the wilds of El Salvador with C. Smith Rydell and Honey York in ON THE LOOSE, I came across another lost chop-shop boy from Steele Street, and his story is told in CUTTING LOOSE, which comes out in January.So many people who have read the books have fallen in love with the cars, all those beautiful American muscle cars from the sixties and seventies, the ones with engines so big the insurance companies balked at underwriting them. In one instance, they did more than balk. By refusing to insure the cars, they actually shut down production on Don Yenko’s 1969 Chevy Yenko “SYC 427” Novas. Yenko converted thirty stock SS-396 Novas into the barely street legal monsters, before the insurance companies got cold feet. Marrying that much power to something as relatively…

Hey, I have a new Christina McMullen UN-mystery (Unmanned) coming out at the end of the month, so…in honor of Christina and her less than stellar dating history, I ask: Who’s your fantasy freebie?Okay, I understand that some of us have husbands/boyfriends/significant others who wouldn’t agree to a freebie even if the seven horsemen of the Apocalypse were thundering down on us from the sky. But if you could spend the night with anyone free of guilt, blame, and venereal disease, who would it be? Christina and I discussed this at some length. It was a difficult task, sitting around with my imaginary friend, thinking about hot men, debating their various attributes/body parts, but for you Fresh Fiction readers…anything. Anyway, we came to the conclusion that while physical appearances can hardly be discounted (let’s be honest–we’re all shallow here) there are actually other factors which might be more important. Attitude, for instance. Personality. Then there’s that strange inexplicable thing I’ll simply call the ‘wow’ factor. After this long cerebral discussion, Christina was rather chagrined to admit that her choice would be Colin Farrell, because even though she’s an intelligent woman with a PhD, she has a thing for bad boys…

Anna Marcus, the heroine of my book Seduced for the Inheritance is a tough cookie. She’s dealing with the fallout of divorce and bankruptcy, and is freshly bereaved. Then she runs into my arrogant, demanding (and of course, irresistible) hero. Anna has just unexpectedly inherited her childhood home, a tiny cottage in the middle of the huge Paradiso estate. When estate-owner Naldo de Leon tries to buy back what he sees as an integral part of his own domain, does she hand it over with a whimper and run away? Heck no. She’s constitutionally incapable of doing that. In fact, the more he tries to rush her and goad her into selling, the harder she fights back. She’s as stubborn, proud and insistent as Naldo…something he slowly, but surely, comes to appreciate and admire. Anna is an ‘alpha female’ who can’t be pushed around, even by the most determined ‘alpha male.’ I enjoy writing the kind of strong heroines who stand up for their beliefs and their rights, even when that makes life more difficult for them. Perhaps I enjoy living vicariously through them. In real life I dislike conflict and will sometimes let an annoyance slide to avoid a…