SEALED FOREVER, my latest release, landed in bookstores the same week the biggest story of the year, put SEALs, whose very secret work usually goes unlauded, on the front page. Suddenly from family, friends, and fans I’m getting phone calls and emails praising me for showing the world what heroes SEALs are. My stories have more in common with Army Wives than with Saving Private Ryan, but really, they don’t have much in common with either. I took the quintessential action figure hero, and turned expectations about what a SEAL story was like on its head. My stories are entirely character-driven. Where I got lucky was that SEALs not only have great bodies, and warrior abilities honed to the absolute pinnacle of the humanly possible, they have the characteristics every romance reader is looking for in alpha hero. SEALs absolutely would not be SEALs if they weren’t the men they are. Aggressive, violent, competitive, bulldog tenacious, self-assured to the point of arrogance, a strategic thinker and also generous, protective and nurturing. Up to now my SEALed books have shown the heroes, away from what for them is the “real world” of operations and the support of other SEALs. To meet…

For the past week or so I’ve driven around with a brown paper grocery bag stacked with books riding shotgun. I’m taking author’s copies of SEALED WITH A RING my March release, to friends who have aided my research. It’s my version of Christmas. I’m celebrating the birth of a new work by making a present of it to all who have helped to bring it into the world. Last Tuesday, my rounds took me to a ballroom dance studio. Several years ago I began work on a third SEAL story in which the hero learns ballroom. My problem was that while I had researched SEALs out the wazoo, I didn’t know beans about ballroom. It was a watershed moment. Reading ten or twenty books wasn’t going to cut it. I needed lessons and they don’t come cheap. There was no external evidence then that I was an author. I knew how dismal my chances of being published were. How silly would I feel if I poured money and effort into learning how an imaginary person feels, if nothing ever came of it? My heart pounded and sweat made my fingers slip on the computer keys. That’s when I realized…