Thank you to Kristan Higgins and the rest of the Jaunty Quill sisters for allowing me to guest post today!

I came upon this lovely group blog because I adore the novels of Kristan Higgins, and she was gracious enough to invite me to write a guest post to coincide with the release of my debut novel, Free to a Good Home. There is something about a group blog, especially one called a “sisterhood,” that is so inviting to a new author, especially when one of its members is as warm and nurturing as Kristan. (Note from Kristan: I hope everyone’s listening!) What surprised me, though, when I first came for a visit is that The Sisterhood of the Jaunty Quills featured so many romance authors. It got me thinking about what draws us to romance as a genre. Because lately I find it difficult to finish a book if there is not at least the possibility it will reward me with a subplot involving matters of the heart.

In one of my favorite romantic movies, Before Sunrise, the character Celine says (to the adorable Ethan Hawke): “Isn’t everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?” I think that’s so true. Love is what makes us get up in the morning. It’s what gets us through the day. It’s what keeps us sane as we stare at the photocopier or the computer screen, or as we wait in line at the DMV or take abuse from a customer at the deli. Everything we do, it seems, is for the benefit of someone we love or to make ourselves worthy of being loved.

My debut novel is about a woman named Noelle who is trying to find love, but comes up short because she searches in the wrong places or sabotages her own efforts at happiness. Throughout the course of the novel, she experiences many kinds of love: she loves her ex-husband even though he no longer loves her back; she loves her Great Dane, Zeke, who loves her back unconditionally; she loves her family although they exasperate her to near insanity; she learns to love a woman whom she thought she hated; and she tries to love a new man even though her heart is still broken from the last. Every one of her mistakes and misjudgments, her triumphs and tragedies, emerges from this pursuit of love.

But she won’t be truly happy until she learns to love herself, and this is sometimes the most elusive kind of love to attain. In another of my favorite movies, Shirley Valentine, the main character leaves her oppressive life and lackluster marriage in London for a vacation in the Greek Isles. When her husband accuses her via telephone of having a sordid mid-life affair, she says, “The only holiday romance I’ve had is with myself. And I’ve come to like myself, really. I think I’m all right.” What better revelation can we ask for in life than the moment when we finally learn to accept ourselves after all the years of insecurity, heartache, and self-doubt, the moment when we stop trying so hard and embrace who we are—warts, bad habits, cellulite, and all—because underneath all those flaws, we find a person with strength and resilience, compassion and integrity, someone who is, after all, “alright.” Ironically, this is usually the moment when we become the most lovable.

That’s essentially what Free to a Good Home is about—coming home from that long and lonely journey of self-discovery and realizing that you do have a place where you belong, you do have people who love you, and despite all the struggle and grief, you have ultimately become the hero of your own life.

In your own life, what was the moment when you finally learned to accept yourself? Share your story in a comment below. Also, be sure to check out my website for a chance to win a free copy of Free to a Good Home or a book club package that includes eight signed copies and a Skype call-in to your book club. www.evemariemont.com The deadline to enter is July 18.

Please welcome Helen Brenna. Helen is the RITA award winning author of romances for Harlequin’s Superromance and NASCAR lines, and her April 2009 release, FROM THE OUTSIDE, is a current RITA nominee.  She lives with her family in Minnesota.                                                     

                                     Timing is Everything

Ever think about what your life might be like today if something major in the past had been different?  What if you’d … let’s say … moved to Kansas with that one guy instead of that other guy moving with you to Miami?  Or you’d bought the BMW rather than the VW Beetle?  You’d chosen the apartment near the lake rather than the one by the park, or bought that house in the city instead of the one in the burbs?

It’s easy to believe that major decisions do indeed change the outcome of our lives, but what if something minor had changed in your life?  What if you’d missed that one stoplight this morning?  Or went into the other checkout lane in the grocery store last week?  What if the outcome of our lives isn’t determined by our big decisions, but by every little minor thing that happens or doesn’t happen in our lives?

 ALONG CAME A HUSBAND, my June Superromance, is in a lot of ways all about timing.

Missy Charms and Jonas Abel (an FBI agent) meet one night about five years before the book starts.  It’s a chance meeting in a bar and they make a spit second decision to have hot and heavy sex in the parking lot.  Only thing is that this supposed-to-be-a-one-night-stand night turns into a whole week of hot sex, a week turns into three months, and three months turns into until-death-do-us-part.  Yeah, they get married.

Except that it wasn’t the right time for them for a lot of reasons.  

Missy ends up asking for a divorce and Jonas, thinking he’s doing her a favor, accepts a long-term undercover assignment and fakes his death.  Four years later, Missy’s living on Mirabelle Island and owns Whimsy, the new age gift shop.  (And no, there is no secret baby!)  When Jonas’s undercover assignment goes bad – he’s shot and bleeding – the only person in the world he knows he can trust is Missy.  But is their timing any better this time around?

So do you think there such a thing as bad or good timing?  Anything ever happen or not happen to you that you just know was all about timing?

ALONG CAME A HUSBAND is the fourth in my Mirabelle Island series, stand-alone books set on a fictitious Lake Superior island off Wisconsin’s northern shore.  With cobblestone streets, Victorian B&Bs, horse drawn carriages and a lot of undeveloped wilderness, Mirabelle is a place I hope you’ll want to come back to again and again. 

I’m giving away a copy of ALONG CAME A HUSBAND, so take a minute and chat with us today.  And stop by my website to learn more about my November release, THE MOON THAT NIGHT, and the 3 more Mirabelle Island books coming in 2011.

Thanks to Margo and all the other Jaunty ladies for letting me visit today!

Helen (Helen’s website)

Please welcome our guest, Michele Hauf today!

Just got back from the office supply store. I don’t know about you, but office supplies dazzle me. I can spend a long time in that store, marveling, dreaming, wondering at usefulness, imagining what I could possibly do with that. Today I got those divider thingies you put in a 3-ring binder. One set for Topics, and another set for the Alphabet. Joy!

You see, I’m finally figuring out that since I’ve written so many paranormal romances set in the same world, I should probably start organizing that world. Take some notes on it, perhaps? Write down characters’ names and details about them like where they live, hold old they are, what they look like, what they are. Other things I’ve neatly arranged in my precious World Binder are maps, a term list, character quotes, character cheat sheets (with their pictures so I can remember what they look like), creature lists (so I remember that my vampires bite, but my werewolves do not), and anything related to my world.

Oh, and I have to give this grand world a name, so I’ve called it BEAUTIFUL CREATURES. I like it. It works for me. Right now I’ve got 60+ characters listed, over a dozen creature types, and too many terms to count. This organization idea was a life saver. Now I can actually scan through and see who that guy was seven books ago that liked butterflies and called his lover ‘Dear’. Or who lives in Berlin, and can do a cameo scene in my current WIP, set in Berlin. And what, exactly, happens when a vampire bites a faery (it’s not pretty, trust me).

I love clutching my 3-ring binder to my chest and knowing I hold my whole world in my hands.

Heck, I just love a good excuse to go to the office supply store.

I have two copies of my latest ANGEL SLAYER, set in the Of Angels and Demons series and available from Harlequin Nocturne, to give away to two commentors today! And if you’ve read ANGEL SLAYER, I also have a short story, “Halo Hunter” currently available (and about Michael Donovan, a secondary character in Angel Slayer) that is an electronic book you can download at Amazon, eharlequin or any of your favorite online retailers. Read the first chapter of both stories at my website!

Tell me, do office supply stores beguile you? Do you take joy in organizing, no matter if it’s a world, a shelf of books, or a pantry full of groceries?

Visit Michele at her website: MicheleHauf
Blog: Michele’s Blog
Facebook: Michele’sFB
Twitter: Michele’sTwitter

Irrevocability

Ah, the thing that can’t be undone. Ringing the bell that can’t be unrung. Saying the thing that makes people stare. Doing the thing that makes you scared. (Hmm, I didn’t mean for that to rhyme. I’ve been reading too many kids’ books.)

There is nothing like doing something people will remember. Because that means you can’t take back. It means you’re committed. In for the long haul. The act, however unconsidered, is now binding.

For good or ill, that’s one of the most exciting parts of reading—and writing–fiction.

It’s part of the reason why the character’s in our novels don’t do mundane tasks in their lives on stage. It’s because things like cleaning the house don’t matter, in terms of Story. (Did you hear that?? Just tell your family it doesn’t have a fundamental turning point within it, so you’re giving it up entirely.) Cleaning and most of the other mundane tasks of daily life, are revocable. Nothing ‘turns’ on them. You could take them back, and no one would know or care. Nothing is fundamentally different as a result. They’re forgettable. Cleaning is almost the antithesis of irrevocable.

They never made a difference.

You can walk away from a clean OR a dirty toilet. That is . . . unless you found a diamond ring resting there, after you’d pushed back the hair from your sweaty forehead with a forearm and knelt to scrub your 20th toilet of the week. And then you saw it. Sparkling. A diamond ring. Which means someone lost it. Or tossed it. And your rent is due.

NOW you have a story. Now you have a protagonist. Someone with a choice to make.

Make the right ones and you have a hero. And a heroine.

In all our ‘keeper’ books, I think one of the things we’ll find is characters actively getting themselves deeper and deeper into worse and worse trouble, particularly with the hero/heroine, and there’s simply no backing out. Nothing they do can be reversed.

Sometimes this is hard for us as authors. We actually like our heroes and heroines. We discover their histories, and fall deeply in love with them. They’re part of our family. We want them to have a happy life.

But we also like you, the reader. We know you want a good story. Happy, easy things happening to nice, good people is not terribly dramatic.

And, in the end, we’re storytellers at heart. We know true heroes and heroines have to walk through the fire first. Sure, they can have their Happily-Ever-After, but the old-fashioned way: they have to earn it. The happy endings in our stories are earned, they are not handed out.

Check out the books on your ‘keeper’ shelves. I’ll bet you can find at least three or four places the storyteller had the characters make irrevocable, un-take-back-able choices. Decisions that—even if done in the spur of the moment, especially if done in the spur of the moment–pushed them closer to the dark edge of What They Known, then straight off the cliff, into peril and danger and their worst fears, right in the hero’s arms.

My sophomore release, The Irish Warrior, came out this week. Winner of RWA’s 2008 Golden Heart® Award for Best Historical Romance, it’s a super sexy, adventurous medieval romance. You can check out an excerpt here (http://kriskennedy.net/143), and I’m giving away a copy to one commentor.

My debut, The Conqueror, came out last May, and I am currently at work on two more historical romances for Pocket. Please stop by the website (http://www.kriskennedy.net/), check out excerpts (http://kriskennedy.net/143), sign up for the newsletter ( http://kriskennedy.net/subscribe-to-newsletter), and I’d love to hear from you ( http://kriskennedy.net/contact-me)

The Weather: An Old (and New) England Obsession . . .

Miranda Neville lives in Vermont, but in her writing she reverts to the accents of her native England. Her second historical romance, The Wild Marquis, is now available from Avon. In the first of a series featuring Regency book collectors, she draws on her former experience working at Sotheby’s auction house. One commenter will win a signed copy of The Wild Marquis.

Spring has come early to New England, at least a month early. My Vermont garden is eerily free of snow and little green things are sprouting. Not that I’m allowed to enjoy this unnatural state of things. Old-timers gather in the Post Office and general store, muttering dire warnings of storms to come. These are the old Yankees, utterly stoic and laconic on most occasions. But when it comes to the weather they like drama.

“It was minus 18 at my house this morning,” one will boast. “Minus 22 at mine,” says his friend and rival. I refrain from suggesting they get their thermometers checked. Mine said minus 10, and so did the weather report on the radio. If the weather forecast says we should expect six inches of snow, in my experience we’re more likely to get two inches, max. But the old guys tell me to expect a foot, two feet, even.

I enjoy listening to the weather exaggerators, because they come from a tradition I know well. I grew up in old England and over there everyone talks about the weather. Admittedly there’s not much to inspire drama, but the cool, damp climate is a fruitful subject for moaning and complaining.

So imagine my shock when reading a section of an early manuscript to my critique partners. “You can’t do that!” they shriek. “Your hero and heroine have just had an emotionally fraught exchange and now they are talking about the weather.” I’m baffled. I’m writing about English people. English people will always retreat from an emotionally fraught exchange into a discussion about the weather. If, that is, they are unfortunate enough to have an emotionally fraught exchange.

This was a moment when I learned one can overdo realism in fiction. My characters no longer talk about the weather. But they do suffer from it. They get rained on, sleeted on, occasionally snowed on. They freeze in unheated bedrooms (good excuse for nooky). They get splashed with mud (homage to Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s petticoats). Because in the end I find I cannot entirely escape my roots.

Climate is destiny.

Do you like to talk about the weather or does it bore you silly? Do you like to read about the weather? (I’m really hoping the answer is yes, so I can return meteorological observations to my books). One answer will win the prize.

Thanks, Margo, and all the Jaunty Quill ladies for the invitation to be here today! I haven’t blogged in a long time, and during the last couple of weeks I kept struggling with an idea for a topic – and then, in the most unlikely place, it came to me.

Two weekends ago I was in Phoenix to celebrate my father’s 70^th birthday, and at the party, before dinner, as about 15 family members were mingling over cocktails, my aunt asked me the typical questions we authors often get asked: Are you still writing romances? How’s the book business going? Do you still enjoy it after all these years? And of course my answers were the standard: Yes, sure, I’m still writing romances. The book business, as far as romance goes, is plugging along just fine. I enjoy it as much as anyone enjoys a really cool job. Yada, yada… My mistake, however, was adding this:

Me: “Sometimes I struggle to write love scenes after all these years, though. I mean, aside from different characters and places, sex is sex, and it’s never my favorite part to write in any of my books. Writing sex – for me – is hard.”

My aunt: “Well, why don’t you just stop writing the sex part? Can’t you just skim over that?”

Me: “Um, it’s kind of hard to do that. Actually, the love scenes are a very integral part of my stories. I just find them difficult to write. But intense love scenes are part of my books, and my readers love and expect them.”

Now, before you all decide this is a topic on writing sex, it’s not.  Though feel free to discuss that if you want! But my aunt’s response was the shocker. Here’s her reply, not kidding:

My aunt: “Well, I imagine most of the women who read romances are bored housewives and reading romance novels is how they get their jollies.”

Ugh.

Unfortunately, I’m one of those people who always thinks of a really good reply to an insult three days late. Of course my aunt wasn’t trying to be insulting; she’s just totally uninformed. I get that. And that’s the most difficult part – responding to an ignorant statement without sounding defensive and repeating the mantra, “I promise you romance is not about the sex! Smart women read romance! On the RWA website they have these statistics, and it says…” Blah, blah, blah.

So what was my genius reply?  My answer to my 64-year-old aunt at that moment was, “Well, that’s kind of a romance-reader cliché, actually. Most romance readers are educated women, and they don’t read them for the sex alone.”

Yeah. Okay. I’m sure that was convincing. Yes, basically, I just muttered the mantra, the standard RWA/respect-a-romance-reader/author defensive reply without thinking. I can’t remember if she just nodded or commented after that, but I was totally befuddled. I mean, I would have expected a comment about bored housewives from some guy on an airplane, but from a woman who’s lived through the sexual revolution and fought the stereotypes?

This whole exchange got under my skin. For years, romance readers and writers have been trying to gain more respect for a genre we love by appealing to the mainstream and trying to gain acceptance. Even RWA has tried its best to better educate the masses regarding who romances actually appeal to, and who is buying them. We’ve even got websites dedicated to denouncing the clichés and stereotypes (think Smart Bitches and AAR). But maybe we’re just going about it the wrong way? Maybe we’re trying too hard or wasting time? Maybe we’re beating a dead horse?

After this episode, I thought long and hard about my last decade in this business, and how I’ve tried to get not only my family to understand it, but how RWA and educated woman readers and writers have tried as well. The women in my family are all very educated. Even my grandmothers had advanced college degrees from the 1930s. My mother has a Ph.D. My sister, aunts, cousins… all educated. And not one of them reads romances as a genre of choice. Now, that’s not a fault or anything. They don’t look down on romance; it just doesn’t appeal to them.

My mom is a rabid mystery reader, so I know she’s not highbrow all the time. My sister teaches high school and doesn’t have time, frankly, to read much of anything for pleasure. Both, however, do read my books when a new one is released. Both say they enjoy them. Yay for me. My mom has asked me more than once why I don’t want to “branch out” into something else. She probably thinks mystery is a better genre because it’s her preferred choice. Who knows? But why should I, or anyone, try to change her mind about romance? Really, who cares what she thinks about the genre? My mom still recommended my last book to one of her bookclubs for their monthly read, and she recently told me she found me a “new fan” on a cruise by introducing my books to someone she met who reads romances regularly. I know my mom and sister are proud of me, my profession, and will buy and read my books. That’s about it. Will either of them pick up a Kathryn Smith or Terri Brisbin novel? No. And you know what? That’s fine. I’m sure Terri and Kate have family to make up for the lost readership of mine.

Here’s my point:  Why are we trying so hard to make people love us? Why are we, as romance readers and writers, trying so hard to get respect from people who don’t read romances regularly enough to know the difference between the clichéd and the awesome? Or, more precisely, between Barbara Cartland and Lisa Kleypas? Why do we give a rat’s puckered butt what the “mainstream” thinks of what we read and write? Maybe in my middle-age I’ve become jaded and tired of everybody in this business trying so damn hard, but seriously, who’s making the money here? Which genre is keeping the publishing biz afloat? Uh-huh. Exactly.

 I think we have some serious respect already, from the only people who matter. And if someone like my educated aunt can say she thinks romance novels are only being read by bored housewives, then well, it’s a shame she’s so uninformed. I think from now on we should all carry around one great book we love (or one of our own if we’re authors) in our purse or backpack or car to hand out to the ignorant, so that when that ill-informed individual on the plane or in Starbucks says, “Wow, you write/read trash?” we can snicker with a shake of the head, reach into our handbag, and offer them our little book gift as we say with feigned sadness, “You poor soul, you don’t have a clue, do you?” Or, if you’re less feisty, just a simple, “Try this book. You do not know what you’ve been missing!” I mean really, what else can we do but recommend a really good book? The worst that can happen is that Mr./Ms. Ignorant will pass it along, and it’ll eventually fall into the lap of someone who will love it.

We can’t make people enjoy romance when they’re mystery readers at heart; or respect us, our work, or our reading material if they don’t want to give it a college try because the stereotypes are tattooed on their brains. Why get defensive and try to convince them with stats? I say better to let them think we know something they, as poor ignorant souls, do not, than to keep begging for friggin’ respect. Enough already!

Finally, a really good, bestselling author friend (who shall not be named because she’s never given me permission to repeat this) has discussed this topic with me more than once, and her feeling is summed up this way: “I know what I write. I know what my readers what to read. If you want to compare it to literature, then sure, it’s fluff. So what? What’s wrong with fluff? Why is there no respect in fluff? Why do we always have to compare ourselves to great literature? I don’t write literature, I write fluff and my readers buy it, love it and want more. That doesn’t make me any less of a professional, and I don’t have to apologize for it.”

Fluff is good! So let’s stop beating that poor dead horse named “Respect Romance or Die” and just offer a book to the uninformed instead. It isn’t nearly as exhausting! Any comments?

Be sure to check out Adele’s newest book, My Darling Carline – and be on the lookout this summer for The Duke’s Captive.

Before I break into my featured ramble, I want to thank Terri Brisbin and all of the ladies at Jaunty Quills   for inviting me to guest blog.  It’s always a treat to interact with readers and writers in a new-to-me venue. I must admit though, after my initial glee I experienced a blip of anxiety.  What should I blog about?

Just when I was starting to break into a sweat, I flashed on a time when Terri and I participated in a panel discussion at a local library. It was a long time ago, but I’ll never forget one specific question launched our way (although I confess I’m paraphrasing).

“Is there ever any part of you in your heroines?”

I was surprised when a couple of the authors answered, no. Their heroines were nothing like them—complete creations of their imagination and research. I wondered suddenly if I was guilty of some major writerly faux pas, because, well, there’s a little bit of me in all of my heroines.

Sometimes it’s something in my background—a past hobby or occupation, a relationship with a family member, an experience with a friend or beau. Sometimes it’s a talent or a skill . . . a belief or a fear. . . a desire or a dream. Having something in common with my heroine enables me to bond with her on an emotional level. I feel her. Even if she’s fiercely different from me in all ways but one. That one thing fuels my passion and pen.

In Out of Eden, my upcoming release from HQN, I have two things in common with my heroine, Kylie McGraw. We both grew up in a small town in Indiana. We both dreamed of ‘getting out’ and traveling to an exotic land. Those two things gave me an awful lot of material to work with. That said, in many ways, Kylie is nothing like me. Those portions aren’t the easiest to write, but they’re almost always the most fun. There’s a lot to be said for living vicariously through one’s heroine!

So here’s my question(s) to you.

1)    As a writer, do you incorporate any of ‘yourself’ into your heroines?
2)    As a reader, do you ever read a passage and wonder if the author is writing from personal experience?
3)    And lastly, for the fun of it…. Kylie’s dream is to tour China and Japan. Mine was to visit England and to see Paris at least once. (Mission accomplished!) What about you. What’s your dream destination?

Beth lives in New Jersey with her husband, two zany dogs, and one crazy cat. In addition to writing, she also works at her local library and travels to exciting lands whenever possible. To learn more about her chaotic life visit her website at www.bethciotta.com

Julia Latham, WICKED,SINFUL NIGHTS, January 2010

Hello! Thanks so much to the ladies of the Jaunty Quills for inviting me to blog. I’m Julia Latham (and also Gayle Callen, but not this release month!), and I bet you think I’m here to talk about my newest book, WICKED, SINFUL NIGHTS. Okay, okay, I know you’re dying to know that it’s a swashbuckling medieval, about a woman accused of murder, and the man sent to prove her guilt. And trust me, it’s a great story, with a beautiful, windswept cover. It’s so great, I’m going to give away a copy to one of the people who comments on my blog. So answer the question posed below!

I’m really here to talk about skiing. Yes, skiing. Or rediscovering a long-ago pastime. Way back in the dark ages (and you wonder why I write medievals?) I used to ski. I learned from my father when I was a freshman in high school and borrowed my mother’s skis. I was always a figure skater, and found that if you can snowplow when skating, you can snowplow when skiing. (FYI: snowplowing is a basic move to stop or slow down, where you bend your knees and point your toes together.) I even went on a co-ed ski trip to Vermont in high school, and trust me, this was a big deal, considering I attended an all-girl high school.

Skiing also helped me get the attention of my future husband, Jim. We were fraternity brothers–it was an engineering fraternity, co-ed. As you can see, I did not follow that career path… Anyway, I wanted Jim to know I was available. I called him up and asked if he and any of the brothers were going skiing that weekend, as I had just broken up with my boyfriend and wanted to have some fun. Subtle, huh? They weren’t going skiing, but he eventually asked me to a basketball game, and the rest is history.

Two years ago, we decided to ski again, after twenty-some years away from it. Our kids gave us helmets for Christmas, in an obvious hint that we need protection. But to my utter surprise, skiing came back like I’d never left the sport. I still love flying down the hill, looking at the beautiful snow-covered scenery, and enjoying quiet talks with my husband as we ride the chairlift up through crisp air. Next we’re going to Aspen, where our son lives, to try our creaky skills on the really BIG mountains. Our kids encouraged that trip, too. What, do they think we don’t get out enough?

So what have you rediscovered in your life after many years away?

I thought it would be fun to talk about the Bad Boy hero. We love ‘em, right? But how bad is too bad?

The hero of my January Superromance,The Father For Her Son, just spent seven years in prison. And yes, he was guilty. He didn’t kill anyone, but he did rob a liquor store. I hope I show that he really has learned from his mistakes, but still, writing a hero like this was a risk.

What do you, as readers, think? Is there anything in a hero’s past that would be a deal breaker for you? Does it take you longer to trust a hero with a dark past?

Do you think this kind of thing makes for a stronger conflict? After all, the heroine has to overcome her misgivings and mistrust of the hero in order for a romance to happen. Certainly our heroine, Marlee, has to struggle with this. Does she want her young son exposed to this fact about the hero, Troy,’s life?

What are some of your favorite Bad Boy heroes? And what do you think of a hero who’s served time in prison?

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THE FATHER FOR HER SON, Harlequin Superromance, January 2010
Life hasn’t been easy for single mom Marlee Britton, but she’s proud of her ability to look after herself and her son. Then old flame Troy Denton shows up after seven years, wanting to be a father to his son. and to rekindle his relationship with Marlee. While Troy struggles to prove himself trustworthy, Marlee wonders how she can ever give her heart to the man who broke it so long ago.
MELTING POINT” in BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE, with Jennifer Greene and Merline Lovelace, Harlequin Anthology, January 2010
Kristjan Gunnarson is Iceland’s first ever Olympic medalist. Coloradoan Stacy Bristol thinks he’ll be the perfect model for her new advertising campaign, but she isn’t prepared for the impact handsome Kristjan has on her. As she supervises filming around Iceland, Stacy fights her attraction to Kristjan. Can a down-to-business American and a footloose Icelander find love in the land of ice and fire?

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Cindi Myers became one of the most popular people in eighth grade when she and her best friend wrote and illustrated their own historical romance novel. The manuscript was eventually confiscated by her English teacher, who told her she should spend her time learning to properly conjugate a sentence. Since then, Cindi has gone on to write more than three dozen novels, both historical and contemporary. She also teaches writing and is a popular speaker and workshop presenter. She produces a weekly market newsletter or you can visit her website.

Hello all! I’m thrilled to be here today on the Jaunty Quills. Why am I so thrilled, so tickled, so pumped??? Because today is the official release day for my second book, HIGHLAND DRAGON, from Zebra books. Can I get a WHOOT?!

So I wanted to talk to you about fiction vs. truth…

As a reader, do you ever read a passage in a book and go huh? They didn’t eat corn on the cob in 1502. Does it immediately turn you away from the author? You swear you will never pick up another book by this author again because she didn’t do her research. Well, sometimes we authors have to bend that truth. We wrap it around something that is real to enhance the story. For example, in HIGHLAND DRAGON I have my heroine, Akira, being sold at auction in the Highlands. Of course, slaves were bought and sold. I researched it! But at this particular auction, the women being bought and sold were valued based on their virginity.

I’ve already had a reader email me in utter astonishment wanting to know if that scene in my book was real. I was flattered, but I also didn’t want her to think this type of outrageous horror actually happened.
So, my question for you today is: What bits have you stumbled upon hat left you gasping at the inaccuracy? Don’t give the author’s name just the bit.

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EXCERPT from HIGHLAND DRAGON

What if she’d already been sold? What if she’d never even been brought here?

Just as the questions entered his mind, the untamed hiss of the next captive pierced through the drone of bidders. Hair black as midnight framed her porcelain face—a face twisted into a ferocious expression of revulsion. Oaths spewed from her mouth in English, French, Gaelic, and another language Calin didn’t recognize. Two sentries in black hooded robes restrained her, and unlike the other women, her hands were bound tightly behind her.

“Christ, that’s Akira,” Kendrick announced in a loud whisper then started for the dais.

“Nay.” Calin placed a firm hand on Kendrick’s chest. “Dinnae draw attention to us or our interest in her.” Calin spoke calmly enough, but his insides were erupting. If the guards dared to strike her, he was fully prepared to start a war.

She lunged at the men confining her to the platform. The woman certainly didn’t lack for spit and fire. She was a fighter. Though relieved he’d found her safe, Calin worried over their initial meeting. Introducing himself to his bride under these circumstances might prove to be an awkward task.

When she drove a knee into the groin of one of her guards, Calin recoiled and instinctively cupped his bollocks. The injured sentry grabbed a mass of her hair, twisted her sideways, and forced her to her knees. Her eyes bled desperation just as she hollered out. The high-pitch note of pain bounced off the canvas walls.

Calin’s hands fisted into tight knots. Had he been permitted to keep a weapon, these men would be skewered over the end of his broadsword. He gestured to his clansmen dispersed amongst the crowd. With the silent order, the three men exited posthaste. “Remove your hood,” he commanded Kendrick. “If possible, I want her to see ye. Mayhap ’twill calm her spirits.”

“Did I happen to mention Akira has a bit of a temper?”

“A bit?” Calin eyed him warily, but he had no time for banter now. “We will retrieve Akira by any means necessary. When we leave, she will ride with me, and I will deal with her temper.”