This summer, my publisher, MIRA, put out my new trilogy—Red Hot Lies, Red Blooded Murder, and Red, White & Dead—back to back to back. Meaning, the first one came out in June, the second in July and the third on August 1. It’s tricky enough to promote one book (in a market where book reviews and articles are declining), so we assumed it would be even trickier to try and promote three. Actually the opposite has been true. My publicist, Tom, is a former newspaper man with a southern drawl that drips over his always-kind words. When a magazine tells him, “Oh, sorry, we won’t be able to cover Red Hot Lies in our July magazine. We already put the issue to bed,” he says in that sweet voice, “Ah, don’t worry about it. We’ve got two more books in the series. I’ll send ‘em out to you.” Another amazing thing about a quick release trilogy is reader feedback. I get to hear what readers think about the love interests in the book. I get to find out whether they’re satisfied with the ending, what they’d like to see in the next book and the next. And I get to…

People often ask writers where they get their ideas. Many can answer about how a particular incident or thought popped into their head and they were able to create an entire book from that. With the first three books I wrote, before I sold, the idea always started with a comment in my head. A character, usually my future heroine, would say something and I’d wonder why she said it. The conversation would expand and I would create the story from there. That’s one of the wonderful things about imagination. Being able to take something so small and seemingly insignificant and create characters, a story and sometimes an entire world. When I started writing RESCUE ME, my debut book, it wasn’t because of some conversation I heard in my head. It was an event. I’m a self-confessed news junkie. Even when I’m writing, I often have the news playing in the background because I never know what might spur an idea. Something that always intrigues me are missing persons cases. Tragically most of these cases don’t have happy endings. Many are found dead, some return on their own. But the few that never return, the ones who disappear without a…

First, thanks to Fresh Fiction for inviting me to be here to blog about Bride by Command, which will be officially released tomorrow. It’s always great to get out and “talk” to readers and other writers. Bride by Command is the final book in “The Emperor’s Brides” trilogy, which has sent Emperor Jahn of Columbyana on a reluctant quest for an empress. There are two potential brides per book, and naturally, by the third book in the series many of the brides are spoken for by other heroes. At one point I joked with a friend, as we walked around the neighborhood and talked plots, that I should title this one Empress by Default. 🙂 At the time, the working title was Unbreakable, and as you can see I ended up with a title somewhere in between. Click here to read the rest… Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

A big thank you to everyone at Fresh Fiction for inviting me here today to celebrate the release of HIGHLAND WARRIOR, the first book in my new back-to-to back trilogy, featuring the “bad boys” of the Highlands, Clan Campbell. Back-to-back means you won’t have to wait long to find out “what’s next?” HIGHLAND OUTLAW comes out at the end of this month and HIGHLAND SCOUNDREL at the end of March. Like my first trilogy, featuring Clan MacLeod, you’ll find plenty of sexy Alpha heroes and “ripped from the headlines” history, bringing to life actual people and events with a sensual fictional twist. Click here to read the rest of the blog. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

Trapped in the past for nearly two years, I have written four historicals in a row! I much prefer to mix in Contemporary Romantic Suspense, but contract obligations made it impossible. The good news is, when you are writing in a certain time period, you begin to get a feel for that period. Mostly, my historicals have been set in the Regency Period, but a few years ago, I got an itch to move on, and so I set The Heart Trilogy: HEART OF HONOR, HEART OF FIRE, and just released, HEART OF COURAGE, in London in the 1850’s. The books are all set around the London ladies’ gazette, Heart to Heart. I chose the period because it was a time when women were beginning to be involved in activities outside the home. They worked, they owned businesses, they were becoming more outspoken. I thought this time would give me an opportunity to explore a broader range of stories and I think it has. Currently I am immersed in The Bride’s Trilogy, books about three brothers, also set in the Victorian period. The first, ROYAL’S BRIDE, will be out next September. In the meantime, I hope you will watch for…

The other day I received a question from a reader who’d already read my latest release Scions:Revelation (December 1st) and the last book in my Scions trilogy. She asked if the prophecy–that has been an underlying thread through all three of the books in the Scions trilogy–was something I planned from the very beginning, or if the outcome of the prophecy had come to me as I wrote the books. The answer is actually somewhere in between. 🙂 The idea for the first book in my Scions series came straight from a dream. I’d dreamed about a woman who was kidnapped by a vampire and they were being chased by gunmen. Lots of running, leaping across building rooftops and gunshots ensued. The scene in my dream was right out of an adventure novel and too surreal not to write once I woke up. But once I started jotting down notes, I then had to figure out how to turn that “one scene” into a novel. Hmmm…I ask the question: Why the vampire might want to kidnap the human woman and why the gunmen were chasing them….and all the reasons in between….and that’s how the first five chapters in the first…

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been reading the Bakery Sisters Trilogy by Susan Mallery. People who know me best know that I love connected stories. I tend to horde the first and second book until the third becomes available, and then read them back to back to back.While for a short series that will release quickly this is a great plan, but for a longer series such as the In Death books this does not work. When Naked In Death by J. D. Robb first came out I bought the book even though I didn’t think it was truly my thing. I saved it knowing there would be more to follow. What happened? I’m sure you know. I kept collecting expecting an end to this series so I could finally begin to read, but that end is still nowhere in my line of vision. Finally I saw a website that was beginning a book of the month read, and offered people several choices to choose from, and amongst the choices Naked In Death. A few friends and I decided to all vote for Naked In Death and get one book or perhaps more should our choice win out…

Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if one thing in your past were different? Just a single thing? Like the movie Sliding Doors, what would your life be like if you’d missed the train home one day? Invariably that thought process always leads me to think about what my life would have been like if I hadn’t pilfered that first romance novel from my grandmother’s house. Silver Angel by Johanna Lindsey. That book changed my life. I remember staring down at it, intrigued by the cover – the heroine had long blonde hair, something this dark haired girl had always desired – thinking, Should or should I? I was about fourteen and if I got caught with it, I would have been in big trouble. But in the end, I did it. Snatched it up, and devoured it in a night.Before reading it, I was a girl who hated to read. A girl who was behind in every subject at school. A girl who had to be held back a year just to catch up. After reading it, I improved in every subject (my mother would insist I add: but math). I read every spare…

The Aisling psychic triplets trilogy was a departure for me. I’d always had a little of the Gothic in my books, a little suspense, and layers of characters and their interactions. But while writing the sisters’ books, I was struck by how much of the material, resource, and research already dwelled within me. Writers often speak of where they get their research, and share with others. To some extent, writing is a share and hand-me-down craft. The rest of the writing experience rests on the individual’s investment of time and energy. Some people are just natural storytellers, and stories bubble out of them. But structuring them, and putting them into book form, takes editing and control. I spent a great deal of time setting up this trilogy. Due to the logistics of business and contracts, I wrote SILENCE THE WHISPERS (a favorite story) prior to beginning this trilogy; the psychic triplets had to sit on the back burner for a while. The basic trilogy idea contains a story arc, where the threads of the story run through each book, and end in the third. I’d written several other series, including the TALLCHIEFS (9 books), and understood how to build a…

Trilogies are an interesting beast—especially back-to-back trilogies. Readers enjoy them since it means they don’t have to wait long between books to find out what happens in a series they’ve discovered and come to love. On the flip side, it does mean that once the trilogy is concluded, it’s over for a good long while––at least if the follow-up trilogy is another back-to-back.That’s the situation that occurred with my first two trilogies––both of them written back-to-back-to-back! After the best-selling success of my debut Trap Trilogy, I was excited when my editor told me she wanted a second back-to-back trilogy. I rubbed my hands together and got right to work. But that excitement was soon tempered with expressions of frustration from some fans who wanted more books as soon as possible. While the time between trilogies seemed a bit too long to a few of my readers, it seemed very brief to me as I hurried to write three new books in the shortest amount of time I could manage. Still, in the intervening months between trilogies, my readers have been wonderfully supportive and patient, eagerly counting down the days with me!I’m happy to confirm that the wait ended last month…