Hi all! First off, thanks so much to Kristan and the Jaunty Quills for inviting me here today, and to everyone who is stopping by to hear a little about STORM KISSED, the latest story of the Nightkeepers, who are the modern-day men and women who are racing to save us from the coming of the 2012 doomsday.

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Here’s the blurb:

Dark forces stand poised to crush mankind beneath a vicious rule of terror and blood sacrifice. Our only hope rests with a group living in secret among us: modern magic wielders called the Nightkeepers.

Dez is no angel. The former gang leader spent years in jail and alienated the love of his life, Reese Montana. Now he has a second chance to join forces with the Nightkeepers and master the Triad magic. Even better, Reese is back—taken on as the Nightkeepers’ sexy bounty hunter. But this time the stakes are even higher for Dez and Reese.

The sexual electricity between them is still alive, but when Dez goes rogue on a hunt for a powerful artifact, Reese can’t help wondering if he’s been playing her again all this time … What will become of the Nightkeepers with a potential traitor on the run?

To read the first chapter, go to: http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780451233752,00.html?sym=EXC

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 “Okay,” you may be saying, “I get the doomsday part of the title, but what’s with the shotgun shells and teddy bear?

Well, the other day as I was picking up my bedroom (read: I couldn’t find the jeans I wanted to wear, and was thus forced to rearrange the random horizontal storage), I caught myself looking at my bedside table and laughing at what was carefully arranged on it. To whit: a Tiffany knock-off lamp, two sheathed hunting knives, three shotgun shells and a teddy bear.

I had to stop and wonder what that assortment said about me, and realized that it actually said a lot. My stories are kind of like that tabletop—lots of danger and action, along with cuddles and pretty shiny things. Granted, there’s also a fair bit of sexy stuff in my stories … but let’s just stipulate that I left a couple of tabletop items off the list

There’s also romance in that collection. My soon-to-be-husband and I are currently living in different states and only seeing each other on weekends … and every Sunday night before I drive him to the train station, he sets out these little still lives of mayhem as a way of saying, I wish I could be here to watch your back this week, but I know you can take care of yourself.

Now, mind you, I live in a perfectly nice neighborhood, but having those things close to hand reminds me that I’m loved by a sweet, smart and gentle man who has a huge heart, endless patience, and a protective streak a mile wide.

In STORM KISSED, Dez is a bad boy with a far shorter fuse, but he’s got that same protective streak and ability to love fiercely. I could see him leaving peanut butter cups on Reese’s bedside table to remind her of how much they once depended on each other, back before things got so complicated between them, and the candy would join a jar of expensive skin cream and a handgun, because Reese most definitely can take care of herself … except when it comes to a certain sexy Nightkeeper.

So, to celebrate the new release and my guest spot here on the Jaunty Quills, I’m giving away a signed copy of STORM KISSED to one randomly chosen poster. So tell me … what’s on your bedside table?? (Or, if you don’t want to share that, then simply say ‘hi’!)

The JQs are thrilled to have Eloisa James with us as she discusses one of the, ah, more colorful characters in her most recent release, The Duke Is Mine…

Sir Justin  Fiebvre

My daughter has a terrible case of Bieber Fever. Just in case the details of this notable illness have passed you by, here are the symptoms:

1)    Her room is painted in three shades of purple, since that is Justin Bieber’s favorite color.

2)    There are three bulletin boards over her sofa, all covered with pictures of Justin torn out of Tiger Beat, occasionally with his beloved, Selena Gomez, and in one notable example, bare-chested (my husband disapproves of this one).

3)    To the right of the bulletin boards is a full-length concert poster of the Bieb.

4)    To the left of the bulletin boards is a black-and-white canvas close-up of…yes! Justin’s face.

5)    Over her desk?  A quote in vinyl lettering from one of his songs (it took her father and me a full hour to figure out how to transfer the letters to the wall).

Have I forgotten anything?

Well, there is the Justin nail polish (not that she uses it), and the Justin toothbrush, and the Justin singing doll…

Now you know why Sir Justin Fiebvre appears in The Duke is Mine:  because if your beloved daughter spends approximately 20 out of 24 hours of the day talking about Justin, at some point a writer has no recourse but to stick the fellow in a book.  He wears purple velvet, in case you’re wondering… and all the girls scream when he sings.  I think he’s going to be a literary hit;  Julia Quinn wrote me and said that he was her favorite character in the book (Sorry, Olivia and Quin!).

So if you could take any star from pop culture and shape him into a character in a romance, who would it be?

New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James writes historical romances for HarperCollins Publishers. Her novels have been published to great acclaim. A reviewer from USA Today wrote of Eloisa’s very first book that she “found herself devouring the book like a dieter with a Hershey bar”; later People Magazine raved that “romance writing does not get much better than this.” Her novels have repeatedly received starred reviews from Publishers’ Weekly and Library Journal and regularly appear on the best-seller lists.

Thanks to the Jaunty Chicks for inviting me here today!  I wanted to bring up the idea of creating totems for characters today.  I do it once in a while in a story, find a symbolic object or animal that represents my hero or heroine, and try to weave that into the theme or plot.

For SEDUCING THE VAMPIRE, I didn’t come up with a totem for my heroine Viviane LaMourette, so much as realize she’d had one all along.   Even after I’d written about it, it took a few passes through the story to realize “Yes!  That’s her totem.”

The first time the hero meets the heroine just outside the ballroom in an 18th century salon, he marvels over the red roses tucked along the side of her onyx dark hair.  In the centers of those roses are skulls.  Hummingbird skulls to be precise.  [That picture of the necklace is a replica of a hummingbird skull.  Creepy?  Kind of, but I own that necklace!]  She later tells the hero that the hummingbird is her totem, but doesn’t explain why.  He realizes (about the same time this author had the realization, and so wrote it into the story), that the heroine is much like the fragile hummingbird.  Beautiful and unique, she has to flutter her (imagined) wings quickly, for if she ceases, she will succumb and flounder and eventually die.  Viviane is a vampiress struggling to survive in a patriarchal vampire society.  She doesn’t want to be owned by any male vampire, so she feels she has to stay one step ahead of them, fluttering her wings ever faster, or she will die.

It was a unique way to show her vulnerabilities, and at the same time, her strength.

So tell me if you feel you have a totem?  Do you relate to an object or animal?  I like to think the dragonfly is my totem.  I have two copies of SEDUCING THE VAMPIRE and some nifty beaded bookmarks (book thongs) to give away to two lucky commenters.

Picture the scene. You’re strolling along a stretch of golden beach, sand tickling your bare toes, or seated at a pavement café, sipping Sangria as you watch the world go by. Happening to glance up, your eyes meet those of a gorgeous stranger through the crowd. You lock gazes and a curious swooping sensation begins in the pit of your stomach, as though you’ve stepped off the edge of a precipice. You just know this is the start of something special, something incredible.

Is there anything more magical than falling in love in a foreign land, or than the joint discovery that comes not only from a growing intimacy, but from the shared exploration of somewhere new and exciting? Now, though I’ve been on trips with my partner that might be described as romantic, I’ve never been lucky enough to have a passionate fling abroad. Yet, the idea of the holiday romance captivated me, so that I had to incorporate one into Voices On The Waves.

Of course, things don’t always go according to plan. Like a couple of my characters, you might have the misfortune of falling victim to a philanderer, or of losing your heart to someone who doesn’t return your feelings. Heartbreak is unbearable enough when it happens at home, but at least then you have your friends and family around you to help fit the pieces back together. To have your heart broken while on holiday, far away from any willing shoulders to cry on … I can’t think of anything worse.

Unless it’s the scenario my mum encountered recently while cruising the Mediterranean. During dinner on the final evening, she and her friend got chatting to a guy on their table, who asked them if they’d enjoyed their trip.

“We’ve had an absolutely amazing time,” Mum said. “How about you?”

“Well, not really,” he confessed, grimacing. “Only a couple of days into the cruise, my partner and I discovered we’re not actually compatible.”

Imagine the misery, the squirming discomfort of being forced to share a cabin with someone you no longer want to be with. Oh, and let’s not overlook the crushing disappointment. You’ve lavished your hard-earned money on the trip of a lifetime, spent months in a state of barely contained anticipation, only to have it turn sour almost the moment you set foot onboard the ship.

These are my thoughts, but if you’ve had any experiences of holiday romances, for better or worse, I’d love to hear about them. Anyone kind enough to leave a comment here, or at any point during my blog tour, will automatically be entered into the draw to win a $15 gift voucher for either Amazon or Barnes & Noble, so don’t forget to provide an email address in case I need to contact you. I’ll be announcing the five winners at the end of my tour on October 31^st over at my blog http://www.jessicachambers.co.uk/blog. Good luck!

I have a love-hate relationship with autumn, I must confess. I do enjoy these colder nights, grabbing a sweater on my way out the door, the first brush of color on the maple leaves, the way the field grasses turn gold in the slant of fading light.  I enjoy snuggling in with the hubby and my softest blanket and watching the brand-new seasons of a few favorite shows captured on the DVR. I love football and the scent of woodsmoke from my neighbors’ fire and crunching through fall leaves.

Don’t even get me started on the delights of the harvest. Fresh apples (Honeycrisp. Try them. Trust me! You can thank me later). Russets tossed from the ground to the oven to bake. The adorable Jack-be-Little pumpkins I’ve already scattered around my house for decorations (the only thing that really grew well for me this year, for some strange reason!).

The kids are back in school, the days seem more settled, we’re finding our routine for the year. Good things, right?

But fall also tends to turn me pensive. I think about all the beach time we didn’t log, all the camping trips we planned to take but couldn’t quite manage, the perfect summer evenings I wasted stressing about the work I had to do or the appointments I needed to schedule when I should have been sitting out on the patio savoring the first glimmer of stars in a warm cloudless sky. As the days grow shorter, I am always haunted by more than just the cute white kitchen garbage bag ghosties hanging in my neighbor’s tree. I am filled with regret for another summer I didn’t enjoy as much as I should have.

While I do love the scents and sights of autumn, there is also always this vague sense of impending doom <g>. I really dread winter. Okay, not quite true. I love November and December, with fresh snow and my giggling kids and the fun and craziness of the holiday season. January and February, on the other hand, have me wishing I home-schooled and my husband also had a portable job so we could pack up and head south somewhere and escape the cold. It doesn’t help that I live in what is perennially the iciest spot in a state known for its spectacular snow!

What about you? What’s your favorite part of autumn? Bobbing for apples? Curling up by the fire with a good book? I’d love to know what you’re most anticipating … or dreading too! I’ll give away a copy of my latest release from Silhouette Special Edition, A COLD CREEK BABY, to one respondent. 

Must the Rake be Tamed?

I want to thank Margo Maguire for inviting me to post here. It’s an honor to have my thoughts appear among those of so many excellent authors.

There’s no getting around the appeal of the bad boy hero: Dark and dangerous, the most infamous rake in England, an abandoned libertine–if you’re like me, you need only see these words on a cover blurb to reach for your wallet. While others may prefer spies or wealthy dukes, no hero interests me more than the man who, heedless of society’s strictures explores the outer limits of his sexuality 

So when I set out to write the Regency set novel that became Lord Lightning that was the kind of hero I chose to write about. The man society has nicknamed Lord Lightning in tribute to his shocking behavior has behaved so badly he is forever barred from polite society. He is famed for his cold heart and his boast that he will never give his heart to a woman for even a single moment.  He is also, like most bad boy heroes, witty and devastatingly charming, exuding sexual power from every pore.

But what sets him apart from a thousand other heroes of historical romance is this: My hero really is a rake, and as Lord Lightning unfolds he continues to act like one. Unlike so many supposedly rakish heroes, he is not a very nice man pretending to be a rake. He is not misunderstood. The transgressions for which society has excluded him are real.          

Nor does he instantly fall in love as soon as the heroine, the gently bred amateur astrologer, Eliza Farrell, appears on his horizon. For from it. Her confidence that his astrological chart shows him to be a man who needs to love and be loved annoys him, and he sets out at once to prove her wrong.

This should be easy, as Eliza is destitute and easily lured into his bed.  It should be a simple matter to seduce and abandon her, but even her trusting response to his sexual predation does not make him fall in love with her.  We are not following the usual script here at all.

It is only when Eliza gives Lord Lightning a taste of his own medicine—and behaves in ways that are never what he expects –showing herself as capable as he is of outrageous behavior—that he begins to find her interesting. But even then, it is a toss up whether Eliza’s astrological art will transform the notorious rake into a better man or his seductive skills that will transform her.

It’s always been a pet peeve of mine that in most rake stories the heroine falls in love with the bad boy hero and joins him in an adventure filled with forbidden, edgy sex, but by the end of the story this wild, exciting man’s love for the heroine traps them both in a conventional marriage. We find them in the sequel dwelling in their comfortable home surrounded by perfect children—living the same life the heroine would have had if she’d married a nice man who had never thumbed his nose at the rules of the society. The author may wish us to believe this domesticated pair is still having the same kind of earth shaking sex they had when they were strangers taking bold sexual risks, but I don’t buy it.  

So that isn’t kind of ending you’ll find in Lord Lightning. Though the delicious man who loves to shock will, by the end of the story, find happiness with his Eliza, it won’t be because she’s turned him into a nice suburban husband. For before Eliza can finally find happiness, she will have to accept that she loves Lord Lightning for what he has always been—in all his rakish glory—as much as she loves the “better” man he has become. And I hope that when you read Lord Lightning you will, too!

You can read an excerpt from Lord Lightning at Jenny Brown’s website.

Do you believe a truly dark and dangerous hero can be domesticated? Should he be? Post your comments here. One lucky commenter will win a signed copy of Lord Lightning.

First of all, thank you for letting me guest blog at this fabulous and fun site.  I was honored when Terri Brisbin  asked me if I’d like to blog here. Let’s hope I don’t goof this up too bad.

My latest release with Samhain Publishing, Wolf, was a fun venture in so many ways. Primarily, it was an opportunity to put my own spin on one of the fairy tales I loved as a child–Little Red Riding Hood.

Fairy tales. No matter the story there’s always a few commonalities–a woman in trouble, some nefarious individual, a handsome prince and a happily ever after.  What more could you ask for?

From an early age I was always fascinated with the hero of these tales. And I must confess, I always tweaked the handsome man on the white horse just a bit. After all, who in their right mind would want a man that flawless?

But who would make a great hero?

Well, if I had a hero blender and could concoct my ideal hero from traits, characteristics or pieces of celebrities and characters, I can easily identify a few people I’d add.

The first was easy–a decision I had to make in my formative years. Ken versus G.I. Joe. I know Ken was Barbie’s ideal. But he was metro before we even knew what metro was, and I always thought she deserved more than that. So sorry Ken, but G.I. Joe is getting tossed into my concoction for his ability to take charge and overcome adversity.  Go Joe!

With him in my blender rather early in my life, I’d have to say a few years passed without many possibilities.  A woman cannot be satisfied with G.I. Joe solely. She needs more than massive amounts of testosterone and brawn.  Brains were the next necessity to satisfy.

MacGyver was tossed into my hero blender the moment he appeared. The things that man can do with a roll of duct tape and a chocolate bar are scary imaginative.  Knowing my ideal hero could use ingenuity to get the heroine out of any circumstance provided a new level of comfort.  And anyone whose name becomes a brand new verb deserves to be in my blender. After all, how many of us have MacGyvered our way out of a situation?

Comfort can only get you so far, though. Sometimes you need the darkness, the primal instincts only a real bad boy would have.  Fortunately for me, there were quite a few bad boys during my rebellious teen years. Hair metal was all the rage and pretty boy Jon Bon Jovi was an easy conclusion. But he wasn’t the one who made my insides quiver like a swarm of drunken butterflies.  Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue, on the other hand, opened my innocent mind to all sorts of hedonistic lifestyles I couldn’t fathom–much less fully understand.  Ah, the things that bad boy could do if given half the chance. He had to be added.

Heroes need to be larger than life, stronger than feasible–the stuff of those mighty fairy tales forged from centuries of tradition and imagination. For this feat, I had to turn to two characters — Duncan MacCleod and Hercules.

Why? Do I really need reasons to add Adrian Paul and Kevin Sorbo? Okay, I didn’t think so either. But I’ll give them, just in case. J Who wouldn’t want an immortal hero with superhuman strength and a deep-seeded need to right injustice? And of course, they both provided a tender side rarely exhibited, but certainly appreciated when shared.

So, writers and READERS, that’s my hero concoction. Who’s in yours?

Cara Carnes is celebrating the release of WOLF over on her website www.caracarnes.com and will give one lucky commenter here at Jaunty Quills a copy of the book in the format of their choice and a little survival gift pack for when/if they get lost in the woods! (Oh my!)

Stretch!!!!

Have you ever taken yoga? If you have, you’ve probably found yourself in some pretty awkward positions as you stre…ee…ttttch. We do this in an attempt to bring balance into our world, to ease the tension in our bodies and basically to become more well-rounded and a healthier individuals.

Stretching is, well, it’s good for us. But let’s face it. Stretching isn’t always easy. i.e. They want me to put my leg where? It requires us to push our limits, to extend ourselves just a little bit beyond where we’ve gone before. We often tell ourselves that stretching can be dangerous. We could pull a muscle. Or as in yoga class, there’s plenty of times I felt I made an idiot out of myself. Heck, a few times in yoga, I found myself seeing parts of my own body I’d never seen before. Believe me, it wasn’t pretty.

Ahh, but I’m not really talking about yoga or physically stretching. I’m talking about stretching ourselves in other ways. Stretching ourselves mentally, or maybe just getting out of our comfort zones, trying something new, something different, and opening our minds to other possible paths. And I guess yoga could even be part of your new path.

The thing is, it’s so easy for us women to get to some place in our lives. Be it a new job, a new title as: wife, mother, AARP member, published author, or maybe it’s just reaching an ideal weight. And generally we got to the new place by stretching, by challenging ourselves. Yet once we arrive, what do we do? We master the new challenges and then we build ourselves another comfort zone.

We tell ourselves that we’ve earned this reprieve and it’s true we did earn it. We worked hard. The problem is that some of us, myself included, get too comfortable and we simply aren’t stretching anymore. We aren’t growing. Or, we’re only growing in one way. And is that enough?

A little over a year ago, I had an editor from a big publishing house call my agent and ask if I would consider writing a paranormal young adult series. When my agent first told me, I laughed. “Me? Write a young adult? Are you joking?”

Thankfully, I was smart enough to ask for thinking time. Then I called my good friends and asked for advice. The answers I got all sounded pretty much the same, “Are you an idiot? Of course you’ll do it.” Or “Hang up right now, and start writing. Now!”

But I still held back. The thoughts running though my mind were: But I know how to write a contemporary romance. I’m actually getting pretty good at it, climbing the latter of success. Shouldn’t I just stick with what I know I can do and work on that? I’d have to really study up on what makes a young adult novel work if I expect to make this happen. I’d have to put in a few more hours. And then there were my two biggest fears: What if I embarrass myself? What if I try . . . and fail? And then of course, What if they want me to put my leg somewhere that I can’t put it?

I had forgotten how good it felt to stretch. You know, when you’re just a little sore because you had to work just a bit harder? I forgot that learning can be fun. I forgot that like an athlete, cross-training in most anything in life is beneficial. That studying, and building skills in any genre could help me write better, no matter what I’m writing. I forgot what it feels like to come face to face with a challenge. I forgot that every now and then we all need to try something new, to mix things up, to push the fear aside, and just go for it. I forgot that taking a risk is sometimes a risk worth taking.

So how did it turn out for me? In April of 2011, the first book, Born at Midnight, in my Shadow Falls series will hit the bookstores. I’ve completed the second novel, and am busy plotting the third. Already, the foreign market sales tell me I made a wise decision. My friends like to rub it in, too.

Oh, I’m still writing my humorous romantic suspenses. That was another stretch I made. Because after I sold my YA series to St. Martin’s Press, my agent suggested I come up with a new adult romance series to shop around. But to do so, we would have to turn down the offer from the house I was already publishing with. No stranger to rejection, turning down a contract didn’t calm my nerves. I’m happy to say that my next romance series, Don’t Mess With Texas, will be released by Grand Central in late 2011.

For me, stretching was writing in a new genre and writing that new proposal, turning down one offer, without knowing if I’d get another. For non-writers, stretching might mean taking a class, learning to speak French, or going for that promotion at work. It could mean trying for a second child, deciding to date after your divorce, or going on a new diet. Maybe it even means taking a yoga class. My point is, change is scary, but if we want to grow as humans, we gotta learn to stretch and we gotta keep stretching. We can’t let ourselves live in only our comfort zones.

When opportunity knocks, you can’t run to the bathroom and claim you ate bad chicken. You have to answer that door, you have to spit fear in the face; you have to be willing to take risks. And if you open your eyes and see one of your own body parts that’s less than pretty, well, just shut those eyes and keep on stretching. Sooner or later, you might even get that leg where you didn’t think it would go. Remember that to try and fail is better than never trying at all. We can’t win them all, but when we do win … Wow!

Thanks for stopping by. And today, what I’d like to hear from you is: how are you stretching? How do you face the fear of change? What steps are you going to take that will help you grow into a more well-rounded and healthier person?

I’ll be giving away a copy of Shut Up and Kiss Me to one commenter. So make sure you leave a post.

(And the Jaunty Quills are offering two additional posters signed copies of Christie’s Divorced Desperate and Deceived and Divorced Desperate and Dating! Three lucky people will win books.)

Susan was delighted to randomly select the following commenters to win a free copy of her debut novel, MONEY, HONEY!

Carrie Spencer
Catslady
eap
Gail C.
Kris

Congratulations, winners! Send your snail mail address to Susan at susan@susansey.com.

Welcome to the Money, Honey Blog tour, in which author Susan Sey celebrates the July 6 release of her debut novel by counting down the Top Ten Most Common Reactions an ill-groomed stay at home mom receives when confessing her secret career as a romance novelist. 

Hello, Jaunty Quills!  And thank you, Kristan, for inviting me!  I’m so excited to be here today.  I’ve been dying for a chance to chat with you guys about Response #2 on my list:  “Where do you get your ideas?”

(If you’re all aflutter to hear about the other nine responses on my list, feel free to check out http://www.susansey.com/pages.php?ID=5.)

You know what I love about this one?  What it means totally depends on who’s asking.

Most of the time, the asker is completely sincere.  You make stuff up for a living & they want to know how you do it.  Answering this one is fun, because let’s face it.  What author doesn’t love to talk about their writing?

But there’s another type of person who asks the “where do you get your ideas” question—a person with whom the author has A History.  It could be your mother, your sister, your best friend, your ex-boyfriend who somehow became Just A Friend.  But it’s always somebody you know well enough to blackmail if you wanted to.   And that’s the key.  Because when this person says, “Where do you get your ideas?” what they really mean is, “Am I in your book?”

And the answer, dear reader, is no. 

And yes.

See, I’m a big fan of escapist fiction.  Which, on the surface, is weird.  Because my life’s pretty awesome.  I’m married to the world’s greatest guy (no offense to your husbands; I’m sure they’re wonderful), we have two adorable, brilliant children and an income that stretches just far enough for me to stay home with them.  What on earth do I need to escape from?

Laundry, that’s what.  Bickering.  Cooking.  (Let me tell you, putting decent, healthful food on the table three times a day for people who express their appreciation with gagging noises is exhausting.)  Then there’s the ensuing pile up of dirty dishes.  And don’t forget the sleepless nights spent wondering if the kids are going to wind up in therapy because their mother is a heartless shrew with a Facebook addiction….

My point is, sometimes I need a little escape.  I need a little larger-than-life.  I need things to start at point A, end up at point B & make some sort of sense in between.  I need to see worthy people defeat a villain, have great sex & fall in love.  In other words, I need a fix of anti-reality.  So why would I look to reality for inspiration?

Quick answer:  I don’t.  My debut novel Money, Honey features an ex-jewel thief-turned-crime-novelist falling in love with a cult-survivor-turned-hard-nosed-FBI-agent who’s stalking a revenge-crazed, knife-wielding counterfeiter.  Got to admit, I don’t personally know anybody with even one of those qualifications on the old resume.  Which is a good thing, right? 

My decided lack of nefarious acquaintances, however, means I often have to make a few phone calls in the name of writerly research.  It doesn’t always go well, & Money, Honey was particularly interesting.  The Secret Service is in charge of counterfeiting (who knew?) and as it turns out, they call it the SECRET service for a reason.  It’s very secret.  It’s possible I’m on a few watch lists now.  I don’t know.  That’s probably a story for another day. 

The point I’m trying to make is, if you know me, you can rest easy.  I didn’t fudge your name & put you in my story.  Not on purpose, anyway.  But real life has a way of creeping in when you’re not looking.

For example, when I was writing Money, Honey, my now-seven-year-old was two & a half.  And this, if you haven’t been around a 2.5 yo in a while, is a hilarious age.  They have just enough language to engage with strangers, all the ego in the world & absolutely no self-consciousness that might check it.  They’re tiny, merciless little truth machines, pelting you daily with facts everybody knows but polite people refrain from yelling at top volume across the grocery store.  In short, they’re insanely cute but extremely uncomfortable. 

So of course I put one in my story.   Liz & Patrick are two of the most closed, wounded people I’ve ever written.  They have secrets on top of secrets, & defenses on top of walls on top of barbed wire.  Something needed to bust these people out of their comfort zones long enough to fall in love, especially Patrick.  So I gave him a niece.  An adorable, formidable, nuclear bomb of a child with an unstoppable mouth and energy to burn.  A little girl who loves him & demands love in return, even when she’s just peed on his favorite wool sweater.

So how about you?  Do you draw on real life when you write (or read), or do you just make stuff up?  How far would you go to research a book?  (I’ve always wanted to do one of those FBI citizen academies myself.)  Don’t be shy—fess up!  Up to five lucky commenter will win a copy of Money, Honey for their very own!