Inspiration for most writers comes straight from their lives. So it’s not surprising my works all begin with those core pieces. Things I love, people I have met, or the places that have been a part of my life become building blocks of the foundations for my novels and short stories. Living on both sides of the Pond has given me a diversity of inspiration to tap. I used Scotland for the setting of The Invasion of Falgannon Isle, the first book in the Sisters of Colford Hall series (Dorchester Love Spell, December 2006). However, with Riding the Thunder the second book in the series (October 2007), I drew heavily on a small part of my childhood and early teens to conjure the setting and people for my offbeat world of The Windmill. People reading the book continually comment that the setting is so strong they almost expect the place really to exist. Well, it did once. Long time ago, before urban sprawl took away the quirkiness of the odd spot on Nicholasville Pike, a halfway point between Lexington and Nicholasville, Kentucky, and turned the area into shopping centers and apartments, there was actually a restaurant called The Windmill. Mysteriously,…

Thanks to the wonderful people here at Fresh Fiction for having me over. Nice place you have here. I hope you’ll check out my group blog, www.storybroads.com/. Meanwhile, let’s chat. I have a lot of friends who are going through one of two problems. About a third are depressed, a third are fighting weight issues, and a third are battling with both. (There’s a tiny percentage in there of people who follow the same philosophy I do, who take everything in stride and are actually doing very nicely. But it’s probably less than one percent of my pals. Sadly. I’m trying to spread it around, though.) At any rate, I thought since these two problems are two I know well, have been through, and conquered, they would be my topic today. And interestingly, the same techniques are effective at fighting both depression and weight. Of course, the first one is exercise. You know I used to think I couldn’t “run” even if I wanted to. And I never really wanted to. I was one of those, yeah; I’ll run if someone’s chasing me with a knife. But a friend of mine inspired me, and so I decided to try. I…

The great thing about being an author is that the learning curve on your job is limitless. You’re probably wondering why I think that’s a good thing. LOL! I think it’s great because in my mind, I’m always learning. When I look at the books I wrote five years ago and the books I’m writing today, I can see how much I’ve grown as a writer; how my style and my approach to writing stories has changed. I’ve always loved a good story alongside my romance, but somewhere along the line, I wanted more. So I delved headlong into the vast paranormal genre. But even writing a straight paranormal romance wasn’t enough, and I began to add subplots, which evolved into suspenseful plot twists, which turned into more surprises in the story than even I had expected. Layering emotional romance over complicated plotlines with mystery elements forced another transition in my writing—moving from being a pantser writer (write-by-the-seat-of-my-pants), with no planning at all, to morphing into a hybrid style author where I wrote a high-level outline as to how the story would play out to the end. Would I follow it? Not necessarily (hence the reason I’m a hybrid writer…

After a voracious romance reader had read an advance copy of my debut historical romance, Private Arrangements, she emailed and told me that she loved the book, but being a devotee of the Regency era, she was surprised at how different and modern the turn-of-the-century setting felt. So when Fresh Fiction asked me to guest blog, I immediately thought of a whirlwind introduction to my favorite era for readers who might be unfamiliar with it.La Belle Époque, aka fin de siècle, aka the (more loosely defined) Edwardian era, refers to a time period that comprises the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first fourteen years of the twentieth century, until the outbreak of World War I. Victoria still reigned in the 1890s, the decade in which both of my first two books are set. But oh what a different world she lived in from when she’d first ascended the throne. Early in the nineteenth century, travel was still slow and laborious. But by the end of the century, you could cross the Atlantic in less than a week. And then, make the trip from London to Edinburgh in eight-and-half hours on the Scotch Special Express (later renamed…

It’s December 26, Boxing Day, one of my all-time favorite holidays. Not that I know what it’s about—I looked it up in Wikipedia and I still don’t get it—but because it marks the winding down of the annual Chrismahanukwanzakah Festivity Vortex. Much as I love the holidays, this time of year tends to make me just a little bit tense. It always seems like there’s a whole lot more stuff to do than I have time for in my already harried life, and I have to admit to a sigh of relief when it’s all over but for New Year’s—which, in our upstate New York household, means champagne and cigars with our closest pals as we huddle under afghans in the “smoking lounge” (our screened-in back deck) until the wee hours. My favorite night of the year. But back to Boxing Day. This year, there’s another reason to love it, and that’s because it’s the release date for Bound in Moonlight, the second book in my Hidden Grotto series. You can’t miss it in the bookstores—it’s the trade paperback with the bright, shiny gold cover and an oval inset of Bouguereau’s Evening Mood, a romantic Victorian masterpiece. I’ve posted this…

SWEET RETURN was fun to write. I enjoy creating tough guys who get their comeuppance when they meet a strong woman. I have found that many tough guys might appear to be tough and rough on the outside, but they have gentle hearts. That’s the character I tried to present in the SWEET RETURN hero. Dalton is a man who has made an occupation of witnessing the worst of humanity, but he still had a good heart.The heroine, Joanna, manages to make a living self-employed in a small, rural community, a challenge all its own. I wanted to create a woman who could equal Dalton in strength of character and independence. I figured he could never be happy with a wimpy woman, just as she had never been able to find a successful relationship with a man weaker than she. So there you have it. As one reader put it, a hard-headed man and a strong-willed woman. At the same time I was creating this conflict-driven relationship, I tried to keep a light tone to the story. It struck me as humorous that Joanna would be engaged in 3 businesses as diverse as owning a beauty salon, owning a wholesale…

OK – I do have a new book out – Southern Seduction by Alexandria Scott, so I probably should talk about the book first. It’s what I call an old time romance. Remember the ones you read that made you sigh once you had finished because it gave you such a good feeling? Well that is what Southern Seduction is and yes I felt just that way when I finished reading the galley. Here is a short intro into the book. Between desire and surrender lies a new beginning – and that is just what Brooke Hammond has to do – start over. They didn’t start out to be whores. But sometimes life doesn’t turn out the way one plans, so you do what you must in order to survive. As Brooke Hammond, Shannon McKinley and Jocelyn Rutland stand at the ship’s rail; they smile at the new life that awaits them. It’s their chance to put the past behind them and start a new life. However when Brooke arrives at Moss Grove plantation she discovers a devilishly charming, infernally arrogant obstacle named Travis Montgomery, co-owner of her estate. So begins a contest of wits and will and winning the…

I like fruitcake. Yes, there it is. I’ve said it in public. I like it. It’s cake with fruit and nuts, which means it’s practically a health food. If my slice is big enough, it should count for at least two of the nine fruit and vegetable servings I’m supposed to have in a day. There’s enough sugar to keep me wired for at least two hours. Where’s the bad? I also like wrapping presents. I have a ritual…I wait until everything is bought, then stack them by the table, get out all my wrapping supplies, put in the original Star Wars movie and wrap. I actually try to match the right wrapping paper to the gift or the person, I use all kinds of ribbons and little toys on the packages. Some years I’m done in two movies, but most it takes me all three. I wipe up the last of the glitter just as the wookies are doing the happy dance at the end of the third movie. I like the fact that I’ve joked so much about not being a good cook that my sister in law won’t trust me with anything more than putting out rolls…

People often ask where writers get their ideas for stories. Well, most of the time, we couldn’t tell you, but once and a while, story ideas stem from real life. My current release, UNLUCKY, comes straight from pages out of my own life. Here’s the story behind the story: My husband and I got married in 2000. At the time, I was working contract, making fabulous money on these long-term accounting clean-up projects. I had just ended a 13-month project and was taking the next three months off so I decided to plan our wedding and study up for the honeymoon. Ah ha, I got you there, didn’t I? You were wondering what I was studying, and I’ll bet all sorts of things that had nothing to do with Blackjack crossed your mind. But Blackjack is exactly what I meant. You see, we were getting married in Vegas and I had plans to take the Blackjack world by storm. By birth, I’m the product of an accountant and an engineer so math is like breathing to me. I figured if anyone can learn to beat the house, it ought to be me. So I started studying. And I learned. Boy,…

What a fabulous day! I’ve got Christmas tunes on surround sound. The house smells like praline caramel sticky buns. And my second book, Another One Bites the Dust, officially releases in the States TODAY. I haven’t felt this fab since I spied a whole stack of Wonka’s Everlasting Gobstoppers on the shelf at my grocery and realized that I might actually live long enough to meet an oompa loompa. I’ll have to clean up my act first though. Far too much swearing for their taste, I’m pretty sure. Should we talk about the book a sec? About the fact that Jaz has to belly dance as part of her cover? About how she’d much rather crawl through the mud while being fired upon by a long line of tanks manned by vicious, American-hating devil-worshipers? Never fear, our girl is up to the task. Gotta impress the boss-man, right? Plus, when Vayl looks at her that way…she may just learn to like the skimpy costumes. It’s not all fun and games though. Jaz and Vayl have been assigned to take down a slippery old vamp named Chien-Lung who’s gotten away with far too much for way too long. Hindering their progress—a…