Chaper 2     She watched from the shadows. Marcelle had bolted from the cellar when her mother had gone out to gather supplies and Madame Fournier had dozed off with her daughters, and then she had slipped into a crowd of people who were making their way to the cathedral square. Monsieur Bauer was doing the translating again for the German commander, but Marcelle didn’t need it. She understood perfectly well what “Wir werden deine Stadt niederbrennen” meant without having to be told. We will burn your city down. Insubordination would not be tolerated. Monsieur Bauer’s voice struggled to be heard over the roar of the commander’s words that echoed in German through the town square. Everything about the man was severe: the lines and angles of his face; the boom of his voice; the penalties for breaking his rules. Loitering, missing curfew, and not saluting German officers were not fatal transgressions, but most of his orders ended with the words “wird mit der Todesstrafe bestraft.” . . . the penalty is death. “All weapons are to be turned over at once. If you are found with firearms in your possession, the penalty is death.” “All collaborators will be treated as enemies…

When I received my author copies for my latest Spice release, Cleopatra’s Perfume, I re-read it all over again from beginning to end, reliving the heroine’s sexual obsessions and romantic interludes with the men in her life, the angst and horror of World War II when she becomes a spy for the British Foreign Service and the fascinating story behind the mysterious perfume in the title (and yes, I enjoyed the sex, too!). When I came to the end of the story, I realized I had unfinished business with the heroine in my book, Lady Eve Marlowe. Before she married a member of the British peerage, she was a cabaret dancer in Berlin during the wild days of the Weimar Republic during the erotic 1920s. What were those years like in pre-war Berlin? I wondered, intrigued. Eve came to Berlin with an all-girl revue in 1928 looking for love and adventure. Instead she found a city bathed in lust and sex. Click here to read the rest of Jina’s blog and to leave a comment. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

I’ve learned a lot about novel writing in the more than ten years I’ve been doing it, but most of those lessons came with my first, Rising Phoenix. People really care about the books they read. And I love that. Unfortunately, I wrote Rising while I was working full time, so there was no way for me to scout the exotic locations I included. And the Internet didn’t exist yet, so casually clicking my way to enlightenment wasn’t an option. I did the best I could with magazine articles and encyclopedias until the excitement of finding a publisher made me completely forget the stuff I’d glossed over. Click here to read the rest of Kyle’s blog and to leave a comment. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.