Here’s a quick look at my new book, The Tycoon’s Temporary Baby. Out now!

Jonathon Bagdon just wanted his assistant to come home, damn it.
Wendy Leland had left seven days ago to attend a family funeral. In the time she’d been gone. his whole company had started falling apart. A major deal she’d been finessing had fallen through. He’d missed an important deadline because the first temp had erased his online calendar. The second temp had accidentally sent R&D’s latest prototype to Beijing instead of Bangalore. The head of HR had threatened to quit twice. And no fewer than five women had run out of his office in tears.

As if all of that wasn’t bad enough. the fourth temp had deep-fried the coffee maker. So he hadn’t had a decent cup of coffee in three days. All in all. this was not his best moment.

Was it really too much to ask that at this particular time— when both of his business partners were out of town and when he was putting the finishing touches on the proposal for a crucial contract—that his assistant just come home?

Jonathon stared into his mug of instant coffee. contemplating whether he could ask Jeanell—the head of HR—to go out and buy a coffee maker, or if that would send her over the edge. Not that Jeanell was at the office yet. Most of the staff wandered in sometime around nine. It was barely seven.

Yes. he could have just gone out to buy himself a cup o’ joe—or better yet. a new coffee maker—but with one deadline after another piling up. he just didn’t have time for this crap. If Wendy had been here. a new coffee maker would have magically appeared. The same way the deal with Olson Inc. would have gone through without a hitch. When Wendy was here. things just worked. How was it that in the short five years she’d been the executive assistant here she’d become as crucial to the running of the company as he himself was?

Hell. if this past week was any indication. she was actually more important than he was. A sobering thought for a man who’d helped to build an empire out of nothing.

He knew only one thing. when Wendy did get back. he was going to do his damnedest to make sure she never left again.

Wendy Leland crept into the executive office of FMJ headquarters a little after seven. The motion sensor brought the lights up as she entered and she reached down to extend the canopy on the infant car seat she carried. Peyton. the tiny baby inside. frowned but remained asleep. She made a soft gurgling sound as Wendy lowered the car seat to a darkened corner behind her desk.

She rocked the seat gently until Peyton stilled. then Wendy dropped into her own swivel chair. Swallowing past the knot of dread in her throat. Wendy studied the office.

For five years. this had been the seat from which she’d surveyed her domain. She’d served as executive assistant for the three men who ran FMJ: Ford Langley. Matt Ballard and Jonathon Bagdon.

Her five years of Ivy League education made her perhaps a tad over-educated for the job. Or maybe not. since she hadn’t procured an actual degree in any of her seven majors. Her family still thought she was wasting her talents. But the work was challenging and varied. She’d loved every minute of it. Nothing could have convinced her to leave FMJ.

Nothing. except the little bundle of joy asleep in the car seat.

When she’d left Palo Alto for Texas to attend her cousin Bitsy’s funeral. she’d had no idea what awaited her. From the moment her mother called her to tell her that Bitsy had died in a motorcycle crash. the week had been one shock after another. She hadn’t even known that Bitsy had a child. No one in the family had. Yet. now here Wendy was. guardian to an orphaned four-month-old baby. And gearing up for a custody battle of epic proportions. Peyton Morgan might as well have been dipped in gold the way the family was fighting over her. If Wendy wanted any chance of winning. she’d have to do the one thing she’d sworn she’d never do: move back to Texas. And that meant resigning from FMJ.

Only Bitsy could create this many problems from the grave.

Wendy gave a snort of laughter at the thought. Grief welled up in the wake of the humor. Squeezing her eyes shut. she pressed the heels of her hands against her eye sockets. Exhaustion had made her punchy. and if she gave in to her sorrow now. she might not stop crying for a month.

There would be time to grieve later. Right now. she had other things to take care of.

Wendy flicked on the desktop computer. Last night. she’d drafted the letter of resignation and then emailed it to herself. Of course. she could have sent it straight to Ford. Matt and Jonathon. She’d even spoken to Ford last night on the phone when he called to offer his condolences. Physically handing in the letter was a formality. but she wanted the closure that would come with printing it out. signing it and hand delivering it to Jonathon.

She owed him—or rather FMJ—that much at least. Before her life became chaotic. she wanted to take this one moment to say goodbye to the Wendy she had been and to the life she’d lived in Palo Alto.

Beside her. the computer hummed to life with a familiarity that soothed her nerves. A few clicks later. she’d opened the letter and routed it to the printer. The buzz of the printer seemed to echo through the otherwise quiet office. No one else was here this early. No one but Jonathon. who worked a grueling schedule.

After signing the letter. she left it on her desk and crossed to the closed door that separated her office from theirs. A wave of regret washed over her. She pressed her palm flat to the door. and then with a sigh. dropped her forehead onto the wood just above her hand. The door was solid beneath her head. Sturdy. Dependable. And she felt herself leaning against it. needing all the strength she could borrow.

“You can hardly blame Wendy.” Matt Ballard pointed out. a note of censure in his voice. At the moment. Matt was in the Caribbean. on his honeymoon. It was why they’d scheduled this conference call for so early. Matt’s new wife. Claire. allowed him exactly one business call a day. “It’s the first time in five years she’s taken personal leave.”

“I didn’t say I blamed her—” Jonathon said into the phone. now sorry he’d called Matt at all. He’d had a legitimate reason for calling. but now it sounded as though he was just whining.

“When is she supposed to be back?” Matt asked.

“She was supposed to be back four days ago.” She’d said she’d be in Texas two to three days. tops. After the funeral. she’d called from Texas to say she’d have to stay “a little longer.” The lack of specificity made him nervous.

“Stop worrying.” Matt told him. “We’ll have plenty of time after Ford and I get back.” As if it wasn’t bad enough that Matt was on his honeymoon during this crisis. Ford and his family were also away. at their second home in New York City. “The proposal isn’t due for nearly a month.”

Yes. That was what bothered him. “Nearly a month” and “plenty of time” were about as imprecise as “a little longer.” Jonathon was a man who liked precise numbers. If he was putting together an offer for a company worth millions. it mattered if the company was worth ten million or a hundred million. And even if he had nearly a month to work on the proposal. he wanted to know how long a little longer was.

Rather than take out his frustrations on his partner. Jonathon ended the phone call. This government contract was driving him crazy. Worse still was the fact that no one else seemed to be worried about it. For the past several years. research and development at FMJ had been perfecting smart grid meters. devices that could monitor and regulate a building’s energy use. FMJ’s system was more efficient and better designed than anything else on the market. Since they’d been using them at headquarters. they’d cut their electricity bills by thirty percent. This government contract would put FMJ’s smart grid meters in every federal building in the country. The private sector would follow. Plus the meters would boost sales of other FMJ products. How could he not be excited about something that was going to cut energy consumption and make FMJ so much money?

Everything he’d been working for and planning for the past decade hinged on this one deal. It was the stepping-stone to FMJ’s future. But first they had to actually get the contract.

Once he snapped his laptop closed. he heard a faint thump at the door. He wasn’t optimistic enough to imagine the temp might come in this early. But did he even dare hope that Wendy had finally returned?

He pushed back his chair and strode across the oversize office he normally shared with Matt and Ford. When he opened the door. Wendy fell right into his arms.

Regular readers of this blog are probably tired of hearing me wax poetic about how much I love Harry Potter. Bear with me one my time please. But surely I’m not the only person who is freakin’ excited about the movie opening today. And okay, I’m not just freakin’ excited. I’m over the moon, freakin’ excited. I can’t wait to plant my butt in that theater seat, freakin’ excited. As I write this post (on Thursday evening), I’m rewatching the Deathly Hallows: Part I. The past spring, I reread the book. And listened to it on tape. And then went back and reread some of my favorite parts. Yeah. I’m a little excited.

Raise your hand if you, too, are excited about the movie? Now, raise your hand if you were excited enough you went to one of those cool midnight showings and have already seen it. <g>

I trust the director and production crew enough to know I won’t be disappointed by the movie, but still, the books are long and there are story threads that might not make it in. (Btw, I’m going to try to keep this vague and not include spoilers, in case you haven’t read the books. But, if you haven’t read the books … then shame on you! Go read them!)  Here are the elements I most hope make it into the movie:

• Severus Snape – He’s one of my favorite characters. Sure, we know he’ll be in the movie, but I’m very eager to see how the movie handles his story line. I really hope he just his just due.
• Neville Longbottom – He’s another character I just love from the books who sometimes gets over looked in the movies. His storyline in the last book isn’t long, but it’s important and so heroic. Go, Neville!
• The battle for Hogwarts – Hey, this is the big spectacle that we’ve all been waiting for, right? It will be heart-wrenching and dramatic. I will cry. Possibly sob. But we know it’s going to fantastic.

Here in the States, today is the 4th of July. Independence Day. The anniversary of the day our forefathers declared our independance from England.

It’s a uniquely American holiday. Fireworks, barbecue, parades, swelter heat, and ice cold beer. Oh yeah, and family. The fourth is all about family and friends. Whether it’s one family of  little kids running around the pool with floaties on their biceps or a sprawling family reunion with dozens of cousins, hundreds of hotdogs and deserts decorated like the flag. Anyway you dice it, there’s bound to be family involved (or maybe even just friends so close they’re like family). And family almost always means fireworks. At least on the forth you know they’re coming, right? You know to have the fire extinguisher nearby.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my family. I adore them. I even love my husband’s family. (Not every wife can say that, so I consider myself lucky.) But it’s still family. And family has the potential to hurt, offend, and generally rub salt our emotional wounds like no one else does. Perhaps this is why so many books deal with the complexity and complications of families. Or maybe it’s just basic catharsis. Even if you love your family, every once in a while, you wish you could cut loose and tell them how you really feel about that jelly mold salad. Books allow us to live out that fantasies.

My July book, The Tycoon’s Temporary Baby, is all about the passion between a boss and his assistant, but it’s also all about their families. My heroine, Wendy, finds herself unexpectedly made guardian of her cousin’s baby and her rich and powerful family doesn’t think she’s fit to raise a baby on her own. She needs a rich, successful husband to convince them she has what it takes to be a great mother. Enter her demanding and brilliant boss, who needs his assistant close at hand. So he proposes. But of course, these things never go as planned. They have enough problems even before their families show up.

It was a fun book to write, and I sure hope everyone enjoys reading it. We all know that romance makes the perfect break from the hot summer heat.

What’s your favorite thing about the 4th of July. Or if your not from the States, pick some other summer holiday. I’ll pick one person to win some fun books I picked up at the RWA conference last week as well as the great conference bag.

I’m in the Big Apple this week for Romance Writer’s of America’s national conference, a week jam-packed with books, authors, gossip and wine.

New York isn’t my favorite city in the world (I suppose if it was, I’d move heaven and earth to move here), but it’s sure a fun place to visit. It’s big, bustling and sprawling in a way no other city on earth seems to be. (But I bet that’s just because I’ve never been to Tokyo.) Today I got away from the hotel for a bit and met with one of my editors and my agent. I got to see a bit of the city and eat some great food. Later in the week, I might take in a show. But for the most part, I’ll probably stay close to the hotel and just enjoy the company of the people I love best–other writers and other people who love books like I do. (Best, besides my family that is.)

I’ve been to New York twice before. Once for the RWA conference right after I sold. That trip was so fun because I got to visit the Harlequin offices and go to the Harlequin party at the fabulous Waldorf Astoria. The second was with my husband when we just hung out for a long weekend and ate fabulous food. So now, for my third trip, I feel less like a total yokel and little more like a traveler. Still, our hotel is right on Times Square and I felt a little overwhelmed just getting out of the cab this evening. So much noise. So much light. I suspect I’ll do a little more sightseeing. Maybe hit some of the shops nearby. Eat more yummy food.

Have you ever been to New York? Do you have a favorite part of the city?

I was so intrigued by Robyn’s post the other day about piracy and questions of morality, that I decided to add in my take on it.

Book piracy=very bad.

Okay, that was easy. The question of whether or not people cheat more now than they used to, whether or not people are less moral … well, that’s so much tougher. I’m sure there are sociologist out there who can study and quantify this kind of thing. I don’t have those resources and it seems to me impossible to actually tell if people are less moral and ethical than they used to be. But the story-teller in me will say this: people crave stories with a strong moral position.

This is an issue I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Perfect example is the Harry Potter novels. Those books are all about right and wrong. They take a strong stance. They say, unequivocally, it’s wrong to judge people based on the circumstances of their birth. It’s wrong to oppress people who are different that you. It’s wrong to abuse power. The moral position of those books is crystal clear. Yes, the characters may have moments of doubt about their person strength or their abilities, but not about the important stuff. The more I think about it, the more I believe that’s why the books are so well loved. I could make a similar argument about the Twilight books. For all their scary vampire nature, the Cullens are probably the most moral characters around today. Both of these series are popular because readers crave stories with a strong moral compass. We need that. We need to believe that right and wrong are distinguishable and that making the right choice is important.

However, if that were universally true, then this nasty piracy issue wouldn’t be an issue at all. And yet it is. It’s something that’s affected every writer I know. One of the problems is that the internet makes the crime of piracy seem so far removed from the victim. Downloading a book illegally seems like such a small thing. Like it’s not hurting anyone. Just as saying something nasty during an internet flame war may seem small. We’ve all done that, right? A discussion grows heated. Because we’re talking to someone we don’t know personally (and someone who’s not even in the room with you), it’s easy to say things more emphatically. Before we know it, we’ve called John396 a total fracking idiot who doesn’t deserve to be sharing air with the rest of humanity. It seems like a victimless crime to download a book, just like it seems victim to yell at John whom we don’t really know.

Yeah, yeah, I know I’m preaching to the choir here. Based on Robyn’s post, it seems like none of y’all download illegally (and we really, really, really appreciate that). Because even if it seems victimless, it isn’t.

One argument I’ve heard (very often actually) is that published writers are money-grubbing brats. We should just be happy knowing someone has read our books. That should be motivation enough for the hard work we do. The fact that we want to actually make a living at this is just proof of our greed. (I’ve never heard this argument stated quite that way, but that’s the gist of it.)

The truth is (trust me on this), we really are happy when someone reads our books and enjoys them. There is no greater joy . Okay, maybe hugging our kids. But we really love happy, satisfied readers. We also love to eat. And to live in houses.

We are not creatures of pure intellect. We have physical needs. Sure, a lot of us probably would keep writing even if we weren’t paid. But we certainly wouldn’t have time to work at it quite so hard. And it is extremely hard, time consuming work. We don’t get paid that much. (I once calculated how much I made per hour. I wanted to cry. Seriously.)

But lets say, just for argument’s sake that we did live in a world were no authors get paid and were people write books just for the joy of writing. We writers bravely post our books for free on the internet. In this world, the newbie writer J.K.Rowling posts her little book about a boy wizard. Lots of people read it. If my Rowling history is correct, she was teaching school when the first book came out (or at least had completed her schooling to do so … something like that.) So let’s say–since in our new world of free books, she’s not getting paid to write–that she’s a teacher. She gets started on book two in the series. She’s writing in evenings, after a full day teaching (I’ve done that. It’s hard.) So it’s another five years to finish book two. Even if she gets fasters, the books are longer. At five years per book, it’s 2020 before Harry Potter book 7 is released to the internet. Does anyone even care anymore? Maybe. Are the books as good? Maybe. This is all hypothetical, so it’s hard to say. But it makes me sad to imagine her writing them in a world where she wouldn’t get paid to do so.

Does she need the billion U.S. dollars she’s now worth? No, probably not. Did she earn it? Goodness yes! Those books are just stinkin’ amazing. They were worth the $25 a book I paid for them. I’ve bought some of them twice (’cause I briefly lost a couple.) And I’d buy them all again if they were available on Kindle (’cause then my husband would know every time I reread them.)

So what it comes down to is this: I think books are worth what we pay for them. I’m guessing you do to, or you wouldn’t still be reading my post, which turned out to be longer than I meant it to.

This weekend at a party, I met a potential new reader who wanted a business card or bookmark or something to take away with her. Sadly, I had none of that on me. In my bag, I had a cell phone, a wallet, a single fuzzy glove and a box of Crayola Glitter Crayons. Ah, the life of a mother. It’s not a glamorous life. The other people at the party (mostly men, and professorial types at that) politely pretended this was normal.

Someone pulled out their own business card and I was able to jot my info down on the back so that potential new reader would be able to keep in touch (and hopefully read all my books and post glowing reviews on Amazon. We writers love those.) But still, I was embarrassed. I had no bookmarks, but I had a single aqua glove?

There is no dignity in motherhood. I’ve been saying this for years, but it seems especially true this weekend. But, on the other hand, I’ve done worse things. I’ve done stupider things. Once I spent the entire day out shopping and at the end of the day, someone stopped to tell me my shirt was inside out. The bad thing was, I thought she was going to tell me my shirt was ripped. I knew it was ripped and wore it anything. No dignity, man. None at all. Generally, I’m okay with that, but every once in a while, that lack of dignity butts heads with my professionalism. Those are the moments I wish I could come off as the glamorous romance writer. And I never do.

If you share your most embarassing moment as a mother, I’ll pick on person to receive an early copy of my July release, The Tycoon’s Temporary Baby.

My daughter’s sixth birthday was last weekend. One third of the guests gave her Barbies. One third! That’s a lot of Barbies. Now, technically, they weren’t all Barbies. Yes, there was the complete Barbie and Ken wedding party. Then there was the Barbie Secret Fairie. The Ariel Barbie. The Sleeping Beauty Barbie. And, finally, the singing Rapunzal Barbie with magical glowing hair.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Barbie. In fact, I even made a Barbie cake for the party. (Yes, I’m that parent.) But to be honest, Barbie wasn’t really my thing when I was a kid. Now, before you start bemoaning my tragic doll-less childhood, rest assured, I had the Sunshine Family. The Sunshine Family were sort of Barbie’s hippie cousins who lived on a farm, grew their own food and—let’s be honest—possibly smoked a lot of pot.

Okay, I don’t know that last bit for sure. I was just seven at the time and I had no idea what my dolls did in their spare time. But looking back as an adult, the signs are all there. I mean, they lived in a commune (essentially)—the Sunshine Family Farm, was a multi-generational, multi-racial group. The farm came with cows you actually milk, chickens that laid tiny plastic (but presumably organic) eggs, a spinning wheel (but no sheep, that I can remember) and even a pottery wheel. It was all very … seventies. As adult, when I think back to the Sunshine Family, it’s hard not to imagine them riding around in a VW van going to all the Grateful Dead concerts. They just seem the type. Don’t get me wrong. I say this with tremendous love and nostalgia.

But I can’t help wondering how my Sunshine Family affected who I am as an adult. Now, I’ve never understood the Grateful Dead, but I do drive a VW. Is this why I drink organic milk and love going to the farmer’s market? Is that tiny plastic chicken the reason I’m now thinking about buying chickens of my own to raise in the backyard? Is the Sunshine Family Farm the reason I fell in love with a guy who grew up on a farm? Hmmm….

And if any of that is true, does that mean my daughter will grow up to love high fashion, metro-sexual men, and four-inch-heeled shoes?

Of course, my daughter is already way more girly than I ever was, so maybe she’d love those things anyway. But maybe I’ll go buy a collectors set of Sunshine Family dolls just to balance things out.

What were your favorite toys growing up? Do you think they affected who you are today?

Today, I have the tremendous honor to introduce you to my very good friend, Tessa Adams, who also writes as Tracy Wolfe. I could tell you all kinds of fun things about Tracy/Tessa, but her blog is as good an introduction as any I could give her. So I’ll just leave you with this fun picture of the two of us together at the RWA national conference last year.

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For most of my life, I’ve heard that love at first sight is ridiculous, absurd, a complete misnomer—after all, it didn’t exactly work out well for Romeo and Juliet.  And yet …  there’s something about it that appeals to me as a writer and a person.

Maybe it’s because my father asked my mother to marry him exactly one week after their first date.  She said yes, and they went to her favorite Chinese restaurant to celebrate, where she got a fortune cookie that said, Happy Marriage, fourteen children.  She looked at my father and said, “Maybe we should reconsider.”  Thankfully, they didn’t, and they were married for twenty-six years … and would be married still if my father hadn’t died unexpectedly a number of years ago.

Fast forward twenty-five years, to a little after my twenty-first birthday.  I was a graduate student in New Orleans, with my whole life road-mapped in front of me—which included three graduate degrees, a teaching career at a prestigious university and a side job writing novels.  I’d been dating a guy for well over a year, and though we’d been separated for half of that—which was causing a lot of problems between us—we were still talking about the school we would go to in the future, where he could get his M.A.  in journalism and I could get my Ph.D in American Literature.  While every once in a while, I thought about where our relationship would end up, marriage and kids hadn’t even entered my mind.  After all, we were young and the future was a long way away.

Anyway, the day I want to talk about was in February (the 21^st to be exact), and a friend invited me to a dinner party at her apartment.  I rushed home from class, threw on some make-up and a dress and hurried to her apartment, thinking I would be the last to arrive.  Turns out I was the first.

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door and my friend asked me to get it as she and her husband were busy in the kitchen.  I opened the door and to this day, I swear I was struck by a bolt of lightning.  Or an arrow from Cupid’s bow, seven days too late.  Whatever it was, it seemed to be affecting the man on the other side of the threshold as much as it was affecting me.  We kind of stood there for a minute, staring at each other, eyes wide and mouths slightly agape.  When I finally regained my senses enough to let him into the apartment, he delivered his hostess gift to my friend (something I hadn’t thought to bring) and then spent the rest of the evening sitting next to me and asking as many questions as possible.

We talked for hours that night, and through it all, my heart was pounding like a metronome on high.  All I could think about was how handsome he looked in his blue polo shirt and how smart and funny he was and how good he smelled … you get the idea.  It turns out he was spending a lot of the time thinking about unbuttoning the long row of buttons on the front of my burgundy Victoria’s Secret dress, but that’s another story, LOL.  When he left without asking for my number, I was devastated, despite the fact that I already had a boyfriend.  I consoled myself by hoping he would ask his friend (my friend’s husband) for my number.  Alas, he didn’t (the fact that I had a boyfriend scared him off), and two days later I couldn’t help myself.  I called him.   We arranged for him to pick me up at my apartment the next night after work, and within minutes of hanging up the phone, I called my boyfriend and told him we needed to talk … It turned out, he’d been thinking the same thing, thank God, so the talk went very easily.

Anyway, the new guy took me out to dinner and a 12:30 movie and I was so tired from studying for mid-terms that I fell asleep on him right in the middle of the movie.  I figured that was the end of it—I mean, who falls asleep in the middle of a first date?  But he was really nice about it and after I kissed him (did I mention he was a little shy) he asked me out for the next afternoon.

We started our date feeding the ducks at a nearby park, and when all the bread was gone, he took me over to one of the little gazebos near the pond and told me that he loved me and wanted to marry me.  My eyes almost bugged out of my head, needless to say.  I was only twenty-one, he was twenty-eight and while I had heard my parents’ story a million times, they’d been nearly thirty when they’d met.  I told him I barely knew him, blah, blah, blah, and yet didn’t go running screaming into the night.  Instead, I thought about his words for a week and when he asked me to marry him again, eight days later, I said yes.

We were married within two and a half months, and just about nine months later, we had our first child.  We now have three children, the oldest of whom is fourteen, and we are about to celebrate our fifteenth wedding anniversary.  Has it been easy?  No, of course not.  But has it been right—absolutely, and I don’t regret for one second throwing caution to the wind and marrying this man that I was madly in love with.

My friends at school thought it was crazy, my parents (who had no room to talk) cautioned me about making such a swift decision when I was so young, my best friend in the world told me I was freaking nuts.  And I did it anyway—why?  Because from the moment that first lightning bolt struck, I knew we were meant to be together.

Maybe that’s why things always happen fast in the novels I write.  In almost all of them, my characters know pretty soon after meeting that they’ve met someone special, someone who is going to turn their lives upside down.  In my new novel, Hidden Embers, which is the second in my Dragon’s Heat series, Quinn and Jasmine have an instant spark between them.  Though both are tough characters, right away there’s a kind of vulnerability between them, an acknowledgment that they see something in each other that no one else is perceptive enough to see.  Of course, that only makes both of them want to protect themselves more …  And when Quinn figures out very early on that Jasmine, a human, is his mate—well, let’s just say the sparks fly!

So what do you think?  Do you believe in love at first sight or do you think it needs to grow steadily for a couple of years before you leap into a serious commitment like marriage?  Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of Dark Embers, the first book in the Dragon’s Heat series.

I’m a mom. Have been for nearly six years now. If you’re not a mother, let me share with you one of the great secrets of motherhood: you spend a lot of time feeling like a failure. It happens nearly every day. By mistake, you send them to school with no lunch. Or you yell at them for making a mess while you’re busy getting dinner. Or you send them to school in tank top twenty minutes before the cold front sweeps though. In any given day, there are plenty of opportunities to muck things up or just generally fall short of your own ideal.

Luckily, every day also has the potential for great parenting moments, as well. It seems many of my perfect parenting moments happen during reading time. Somehow, it’s the one time every day that never gets muddled by anger, by dash expectations, or by miscommunication. It is, in short, perfect. Me–at my best–sharing something I love with my kids–the people I love best. We all lay down in bed together, often with my hubby sitting at the foot of the bed, his laptop open, but still listening, and I read aloud. Occasionally even the cat joins us. Often it’s picture books, sometimes longer novels. And now that my daughter is older, we usually start with her reading a book to me.

The first chapter book I read to her was a favorite from my own childhood: The Great Christmas Kidnapping Caper, about three mice who live in Macy’s over the Christmas holiday. That was followed quickly by Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM, another favorite of mine. And then, oddly enough, The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Worried that our reading was becoming very rodent themed, we branched out to the Little House books and eventually the first couple of Harry Potter books. Between novels, we inevitably read more picture books, returning to our favorites as well as exploring new ones.

My sister shares a love of picture books and she’s gifted us with some of her favorites. Whenever a friend has a baby, books are my favorite shower gift. I find the best picture books are always the ones someone has recommended.

What books have you loved, either as a parent or a child?

Another writer and I were talking recently about how all writers are worriers. This is so true of me. I worry about all kinds of crazy stuff that shouldn’t be taking up my brain space.

Here’s a short list of things I’ve exerted emotional energy on recently:

• Fictional characters: My daughter loves a series of books about The Doll People in which an heirloom china doll befriends a plastic Little People style doll. They become best friends and have lots of adventures. My daughter loves them! Me, I spend the entire book worrying that the plastic will age badly and eventually get thrown away or donated to Goodwill. What will the dolls do if they are separated? How sad for both of them! But they’re not real! Nevertheless, I still worry.
• The lives and emotional health of … the insects in my yard: I recently bought a fantastic new composter, the kind that you turn once a day. But every time I turn it, I worry about the bugs that live in there. Am I squashing them? Do they get upset when their entire world is turned upside down? I also have these same fears about the pill bugs my kids catch and keep in jars for a few hours. I can’t help thinking it must be very traumatic. Hmm … maybe they need therapy?
• The birds that nest in my purple martin house: A few years ago, I bought my husband a very fancy purple martin house for our backyard. After it was installed, the guy told me that in the spring, I’m supposed to lower it once a week and remove any nests of birds that aren’t purple martins. Apparently purple martins won’t nest with other birds. So what? I’m supposed to just evict those hard-working birds who’ve started nests in my martin house? They invested time and energy in those nests! Maybe they won’t have time to build another! Maybe they even have–gasp!-eggs in them! And I’m supposed to just kick them out??? (Obviously, this is why I’m a writer and not a slumlord.)

Now, obviously, this capacity to anthropomorphize anything is a good skill for a writer to have. But I gotta tell you, sometimes, it’s just exhausting. Is there anything you worry about that you shouldn’t?

I’ll pick a couple of commentors to win a copy of one of backlist books.