It’s easy to feel like Hell when your life is overrun by teenagers, toddlers, and terror. Just ask housewife and demon hunter Kate Connor…

Between gala fundraisers for her husband’s political campaign, chaperoning her daughter’s first date, and performing arcane magical rituals, Kate hardly has time to prepare for the impending chaos: a party for her toddler son.

Keeping a house full of kiddies in line will take all of Kate’s skills as a mother and demon hunter, just when she’ll need them the most. The High Demon Goramesh has returned to San Diablo—this time with a full-blown army of the undead and a plan to get rid of Kate before she can get rid of him. And once again, it’s up to Kate to save the world. Good thing she can multitask…

Throwing Rocks at Your Characters

At this very moment, I’m at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington. And for those of you who’ve never had the pleasure, that means standing in a lot of lines. And while I stand in lines, I do one of two things: I wrangle with my children, keeping them from poking at other people in line, or I think about my stories.

And today (okay, I’m actually in the hotel taking a break, but I WAS there, and I AM going back in half an hour) I drifted from thinking about plot points, to thinking about what the world would be like if people truly wanted their lives to be like those of the characters in novels.

Follow me here: Sure, characters often get happy endings (especially in romance!), and of course we all want that. But let’s think about how they get there. They go through absolute heck.

And there’s a reason for that. In real life, if your normally well-behaved child throws a tantrum the day you have to be dressed in your best and present a proposal to the mayor, your best friend is going to totally sympathize with you. She’ll tell you that you’re a good mom with terrible luck, and it absolutely sucks that you had such a bad, bad day. But if you’re a character in a novel …

Well, in that case, your author is going to rub her hands together gleefully and utterly without sympathy. For that matter, she’s probably going to wonder if she can make it even worse for you. Maybe toss in a 103 degree fever along with the tantrum. And the presentation is career-making. You know what? Let’s say that it’s not even a presentation – it’s a murder trial, and it’s your big chance to prove you (now you’re a prosecutor) can try cases on your own. Only your husband’s out of town and your nanny quit this morning.

See? Already you’re worried about this mythical “you,” aren’t you? (Come on, you can admit it.) Child and family v. career, and how to balance them, and can she balance them? That’s good drama, and it makes for a good story.

But what if poor you-the-novel-heroine calls the office, gets a continuance of the court case, takes the kid to the doctor, gets antibiotics, calls work and is told to take four days off to take care of the child, and the child sleeps peacefully while you work at home, figure out the best approach for the case, and then go in a week later and blow the other side out of the water. Great result … but boring, boring, boring to read.

One of my favorite characters from my various novels is Kate Connor, a demon-hunting soccer mom, who is the main character and voice of a series of novels that started with Carpe Demon. (The fourth book in the series, Deja Demon, is out now! Run, run, run to your favorite bookseller! Thus endeth the commercial.)

At any rate, one of the reasons I love writing Kate is that the poor woman is a lot like me … and yet I get to throw all those horrible things at her that (thankfully!) don’t come my way, at least not too often. Her life has drama. Mine, thankfully, has not so much. (Though there are days …. But I digress.)

To give you an idea of what I mean, Kate is your average mom of two. She has a fourteen year old and an almost-three year old. (I have a six and four year old). She has an old job that she quit to be a mom. (I have an old job that I quit to write full time.) Her old job has come back … and with a bang. She used to be a demon hunter, and when a demon crashes through her kitchen window in Carpe Demon, suddenly she’s back in business. (Thus illustrating my point; the most my legal background has come back to “haunt” me is the inevitable reading and analysis of my book contracts, and questions from friends who are writing attorneys. A bit less dramatic than Kate’s life. This, I think, is good.)

As the books have progressed, Kate’s been faced with ever-increasing problems, and though I don’t want to include any blatant spoilers for those who might want to dig into the series, let’s just say that I would be more than a little stressed out if I was happily married to my second husband – and then learned that my dead first husband has returned in the body of another man … and he still desperately wants to be in my life.

In other words, Kate’s got problems. And that’s one of the things that makes her so much fun to write (and from the letters from fans, I think it’s safe to say that’s what makes readers want to spend time with her, too!). I’ll even confess to sometimes being envious of the drama in Kate’s life. It’s easy to get a little frustrated on those days that seem to be filled with cleaning, cooking, and trying to get the kids to go to bed at a reasonable hour. But then I step back and look at the bigger picture: Yeah, Kate’s life is interesting, but so is mine, albeit not quite so dramatic (or dangerous).

So I lean back in my chair and remember that whenever I want that kind of drama in my life, I can pick up a good book from any of my favorite authors. Or, I can spend time with my own characters and traumatize them with all sorts of things that go wrong! And that, my friends, is fun!

Julie Kenner wants it known that it’s a rare week in her life that has only cooking, cleaning and kids. There’s no shortage of drama there, but thankfully it usually resolves and comes in small bursts, contrary to those poor fictional characters who get crisis after crisis piled upon them. A fact for which Julie is daily thankful. You can read all about Julie and her poor, mistreated characters at www.juliekenner.com.

****Leave a comment to be in the running to win a book from Julie!

We have a winner! The winner of Jessica’s post is….

Susan!!

Congrats Susan!

Please email me at mad @ romancereaderatheart.com (without the spaces) so we can send the book out to you. Enjoy!

We have a winner! The winner of Beth’s post is….

TeresaW!!

Congrats Teresa!

Please email me at mad @ romancereaderatheart.com (without the spaces) so we can send the book out to you. Enjoy!

Raised as a poor but cunning pickpocket, Jess Whitby may have grown into a wealthy young woman, but now she must rely once again on her guile. Her father’s been wrongly accused of selling secrets to Napoleon, and he’s going to hang—unless Jess finds the real traitor in the London underworld. She never dreamed her search would begin by waking up naked in the bed of a rude merchant captain. Or how little she’d mind…

When Captain Sebastian Kennett averts a kidnapping on the London docks, he takes the headstrong would-be victim home. He’s infatuated with her courageous spirit. She’s enthralled by his commanding strength and the sexy spark in his eyes. Then she discovers something else about the spellbinding seaman: He could be the traitor she’s hunting, the man whose next move could determine her father’s fate—and her future as well.

I don’t run into many other writers. So I don’t know how writers, en masse or in particular, work. I only know how I work.

When I’m approaching a new manuscript, part of me is all business. I just research the heck out of every aspect of the historic period. If my folks are going to use pencils — and isn’t that a better choice if you’re writing in the semi-dark than inkwells and quills and silver sand and all that prickle-and-spice? — then I know Faber-Castell made pencils in my period. Building the history of my hero and the heroine, I draw up charts and tables of dates like I was planning the invasion of Crete. I may not know precisely what Sebastian ate for breakfast Tuesday last, but I know he had strong tea, not coffee, and he didn’t touch the eggs. He hates eggs.

But all this planning and thinking … that’s not the creative process.

There’s a great short story — The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber. The protagonist is a guy who bumbles through his life as the most unheroic man you could ever meet. But every boring or humiliating incident of his existence sets off a story inside him. Outside, he’s a nebbish. Inside, he’s strong, wise, and forceful. Inside, he’s the hero of his own ongoing serial drama.

I am so Walter Mitty.

If you could tune into one of those superspy satellites and watch me beating up cake batter or planting bulbs or paying the electric bill, you might — if this were a particularly well focused satellite — catch a particularly vague look in my eyes from time to time. The body is at the vegetable bins picking out tomatoes or in the weedy spot under the oaks in the front garden yanking loosestrife. But me … I’m in the alleyways of 1811 London or on shipboard off the coast of ancient Greece or huddled in a bunker under some red-lit, psychic, battlefield attack in 2210.

Any of those is way more exciting than the Catch of the Day at Harris Teeter. I’m just saying.

And if sometimes I find myself at the sink, blinking like an owl in the dawn, wondering if I came in here to get a drink or feed the goldfish, maybe this is part of my creative process. Maybe it’s easier to tell stories about ‘there’ if you’re not entirely all ‘here’.

I was all the way grown up before I realized that not everybody has a select, few dozen, familiar dreams they go back to again and again. My whole life, I’ve been telling myself the continuing adventures of Joanna Bourne in Regency London, Joanna Bourne in ancient Rome, Joanna Bourne in the future. It’s just a step from there to telling somebody else’s adventures.

I dunnoh what other folks have in their heads. What do people think about if they’re not making up stories? I always wonder.

Writing the manuscript … When I sit down at the typewriter, I’m off visiting my fictional world. Bang the drums, flash the lights. I won’t see them.

Number Seven, Meeks Street — that’s where my spies live — that’s where I am.  Number Seven has lots of stories I’ve never told anyone. Lots of stories even I don’t know. I’m anxious to get to them.

****Leave a comment for the chance to win a copy of MY LORD & SPYMASTER.

It’s one of my daughters’ birthday today (who told her she can turn 11? ) so I’m going to be out of the house most of the day. If your comments don’t post, don’t worry. Most likely WordPress will have them waiting for me to approve them when I get back. Have a great day everyone!

LOVE IS THE MOST DANGEROUS SECRET OF ALL…

Small-town librarian Charity Prewitt never dreamed she’d meet and fall in love with a man like Nicholas Ames. The handsome, rich, charming, sexy-as-hell millionaire blew into tiny Parker’s Ridge, Vermont, and immediately rocked her world. Powerful, sensual, the perfect man, Nick knows all the right words — and all the right spots to touch, sending her soaring to dizzying new heights of ecstatic abandon. Never before has prim and proper Charity leapt into bed with a perfect stranger — and now that she’s there with him, nothing is going to drag her away!

But Nick Ames is not who he claims to be. In truth, he is Nicholas Ireland — the one they call “Iceman.” A former Delta Force operator, now a high-level undercover agent, he will do whatever his government asks of him — lie, seduce, betray… even kill, if necessary — for the sake of the mission. And this time his mission is Charity Prewitt.

Suddenly one woman has broken down his chilly restraint and ignited his passions completely. And before the erotic dream turns into a nightmare, will Charity be able to melt the Iceman’s cold, cold heart?

Dear friends,

A writer’s mind is a wondrous and rather odd thing. We keep things in our heads over long periods of time — a scene, a snatch of dialogue, a situation — and lo and behold, there it is, embedded in your latest novel. The pretty simile would be that of a pearl, slowly accruing layers. but actually, it’s more like a magpie building a nest out of bits and bobs.

The writing of Dangerous Secrets (out July 1st) was definitely a bit like that. For years, I’ve had a definite scene in mind. A dangerous man, a soldier, watching from a hillside as someone is buried, watching a woman mourn. He is watching his own funeral. Then he comes back from the dead.

For some odd reason, I wanted to set most of the novel in Sorrento, Italy, of all places. For years, I had the file open, called Surprise in Sorrento (yes, it is cheesy). So in all the years I tried to sell to Harlequin, I wrote and rewrote and tied myself into knots because a) I had to drag my heroine all across the ocean so that b) her husband could reveal himself as alive.

But I didn’t sell to Harlequin, and my writing turned darker, more somber. As a category romance, the scenario might have worked on a light hearted plane, but outside the rarified world of category romance, a man must have the most impelling reason possible to do something like that. And the book that began bubbling in my head definitely could not take place in the amid the bougainville of Sorrento!

And I started writing erotic romance, which so far feels like such a good fit for me, because I can be as over the top romantic as I want without an editor calling it mushy because I also use swear words, so the fierce romanticism gets to slide right by them.

And I mulled the novel over and over…I’d been reading a lot about the Gulags in Soviet Russia, about the Russian mafia. We’re all obsessed with terrorism but to my mind international organized crime is scarier and more immediately dangerous to you.

I like my villains to be sane. There are plenty of sane sociopaths. they’re not nuts, they just cannot empathize, they want money and power and are perfectly willing to walk over you (or slit your throat) to get it, because you simply don’t exist. The drooling, crazed ritualistic serial killer has been overdone. How many serial killers can there possibly be in the world? But a man who will coolly kill for money and power — there are lots of those.

So my villain became this really interesting guy — a writer, a man of culture, who survived the Gulag. Anyone who has read even one article about the Gulag knows what this means. Hell is probably a ton of fun in comparison to what happened in the Soviet prison camps.

And … Vassily was born.

I needed a hero. He had to be a man arrowing straight for the bad guy and he stumbles badly because right in the middle of a deadly mission, he starts falling in love, and he stumbles, for the first time in his life.

Nick was born.

And then a heroine came to me, whole and complete. I love her. Charity Prewitt, librarian, spinster. But she is oh, so more. She is strong and gutsy and loyal the way good women are. She does what she thinks is right and is more than willing to pay the consequences.

Well, no more, because I’m hoping you’ll go out and buy the book. And I hope even more, that when you have bought the book and have read it, that you’ll like it. Dangerous Secrets came from a very deep place inside me and I just loved writing the characters, all of them, including the bad guy.

I’m 6 hours ahead of most of you, 9 hours for some of you but I’m willing to stay up and answer any questions, over this evening and of course over tomorrow, if our gracious hostess will allow that. *Ed: Like I would ever think of denying us the chance to talk to her! Ask away, ladies!*

Ciao

Lisa Marie Rice
DANGEROUS SECRETS
‘Love is the most dangerous secret of all’
Out now by Avon Red!

***Up for grabs is a copy of DANGEROUS SECRETS so leave a comment, ladies!

It’s Raining Romance…

At least it feels like it to me.  Not only do some of my favorite autobuy authors have releases this July, but I’ve got two books out myself.

Forbidden:  The Billionaire’s Virgin Princess

Sebastian Hawk is a master in business and in the bedroom. There is no place for emotion in his world.  Lina is a headstrong and reckless princess in need of protection and Sebastian is called in to provide round-the-clock security. Her provocative innocence is too enticing, and Sebastian loses his legendary self—control and beds her…only to discover she’s still a virgin…

And the mass market re-release of Ready
(the first in my Brava Mercenaries Trilogy)

They’re the good guys fighting the bad guys. They’ll get the job done—if the price is right and so is the cause. And what cause could be nobler than the heart’s desire? Rough and ready, tough and tender—when it comes to love and security, these hunks are definitely for hire…
As a writer, Lise Barton is used to coming up with wild scenarios for her characters, but the one that’s playing out for her right now is no fiction—it’s frighteningly real. Someone is stalking her, someone who knows where she lives and what she does. Someone who has even threatened her family—her brother, his wife, and their precious baby girl. Lise isn’t about to let someone hurt them, so she packs up and leaves Texas for the anonymity of Seattle. And then the threats start again…

Joshua Watt’s mission is simple: Go to Seattle and bring Lise home for Thanksgiving or he’ll never hear the end of it from his sister. It’s not like “Aunt Lise” to stay away from their adorable niece, and Joshua’s pretty sure he’s the reason for it. He’s spent months trying to forget the taste of her lips, the feel of her soft hair in his fingers. Yeah, okay, he wants her—badly—but family comes first. But the minute he sees the fear in Lise’s eyes, his survival instincts kick in. The former Army Ranger isn’t about to let some creep terrorize an innocent woman—not on his watch. He’s going to do what it takes to protect Lise and try to keep his personal feelings out of it.
Because if there’s one thing he’s learned, it’s that sex and work don’t mix. Not ever. So far…

Lots of readers prefer mass market over tradesize, so I’m truly thrilled to know that I’ve been given the chance to share this story with those readers.

I love romance and I write because the stories are always playing in my head, but I also write to touch readers and I truly hope both of these books will do so.  Each has its own themes and characters, but one thing stands true - love *can* overcome and it’s worth fighting for, even if you have to get sneaky as Princess Lina discovers - or downright stubborn as Lise shows.  These two heroines are a couple of my favorites and I hope you think so too.

So, tell me - who is the favorite romance heroine you’ve read or seen in a movie/tv?

As always, I’m happy to give away books - so I’ll draw a name from the comments listed to receive a copy of one of my other personal favorites - 3 Brides for 3 Bad Boys.

Hugs,
Lucy

I picked up the newest Book Page at BAM today and there was an ad for Tell Harlequin in it. New to me site.

The ad did make me curious about what the site is all about.

Do you read romance? If so, we want to hear from you.

Visit us at www.TellHarlequin.com

Help shape the future of romance reading. We’ll reward you for sharing your opinions with us!

When I went to check it out, it said it will launch on July 28th.

PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER AUTHOR TO CHAT
ABOUT WHAT LIES BETWEEN THE LINES:
Melanie Wells Joins Readers on Online Bookstore Chat

WHO:	Melanie Wells, author of the critically acclaimed Dylan Foster series – “When the Day of Evil Comes,” “The Soul Hunter” and the newly-released “My Soul to Keep.” Wells will join the family-friendly online bookstore, Abunga.com, to discuss her insights on the fiction series, writing, building story lines and using one’s creativity and imagination to shape character development.
WHAT:	“Authors at Abunga” Chat with Melanie Wells Wells’ Dylan Foster trilogy is packed with both humor and suspense. Each thriller tracks the mayhem surrounding Wells’ unlikely heroine, college psychology professor Dylan Foster. Wells, who is also a psychotherapist and accomplished musician, will provide insights into her writing style, how stories are created, and where characters come from.
wheN:	Wednesday, July 16, 2008 11 a.m. – Noon PDT / 1 – 2 p.m. CDT / 2 – 3 p.m. EDT (LIVE) At www.Abunga.com/AuthorsAtAbunga
DETAILS:	Wells is the first author to be featured on the newly-created “Authors at Abunga” chats by Agunga.com. A Texas native, Wells is an accomplished musician (she’s a fiddle player) a licensed psychotherapist, and the founder and director of Dallas-based LifeWorks counseling associates (www.wefixbrains.com). Beginning with “When the Day of Evil Comes,” each of Wells’ novels weaves a gripping tale in which the quirky, likeable Dylan Foster wrestles with her own personal demon — Peter Terry – “a spiritual and emotional stalker,” Wells says, ”Peter Terry is a compelling character who rings true for all of us. He is a metaphor for the opposition we all have in our lives. And we can all relate to Dylan, who often feels like she’s fighting forest fires with a squirt gun.” More info found at www.Abunga.com/FeaturedAuthorWells. Abunga.com is an online bookstore founded to provide families a protected shopping environment. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., Abunga.com offers more than 1.6 million family-friendly books, savings through distributor-direct prices and support to nonprofit organizations by donating 5 percent of each transaction to a customer-selected charity. For more information, visit www.Abunga.com.

I’m so excited. There’s a booksigning that will be happening at B&N in Raleigh on Saturday and I’ve decided to go. Made plans and told the girls they can’t rush me out of B&N like they normally do when I get into a bookstore. Some of the authors that will be there are Sabrina Jeffries, Liz Carlyle, Deb Marlowe, Emilie Rose, Virginia Kantra, Jenna Black, Claudia Dain, Lynette Kent and several more. Oh happy day! Anyone in the area that can also make it?