Congrats to Deb and Betty Hamilton. You’ve been randomly chosen to win the signed copies of The Making of a Gentleman. Email me at shana@shanagalen.com with your address, or look for my email in your inbox. Thanks to everyone for your wonderful comments!

The winners of the 5 excerpt books are

Kay
Jahaira
Vivian Davis
Quilt Lady
and
Sharon A

Email me at shana@shanagalen.com with your address. I’ll send you an excerpt book and some LORD AND LADY SPY swag. Congrats!

Melanie Adkins in the winner of the 4 historical romances mentioned in my blog yesterday. Melanie, email me at shana@shanagalen.com with your address.

The randomly chosen winner is Sandra G Roberts! Sandra, email me your address and I’ll send you the signed copies of CAPTURING THE COMMANDO by Colleen Thompson and SOCIETY’S MOST DISREPUTABLE GENTLEMAN by Julia Justiss.

shana@shanagalen.com

Wendy P is the randomly chosen winner of Vicky’s ARC and romance trading cards. Congrats, Wendy! Send me your address, and I’ll forward it to Vicky.

Email me at shana@shanagalen.com

Some of you may have noticed I’ve been absent as of late. Maybe some of you have forgotten who I even am! Well, the reason is that I’m extremely busy. I’m writing under 3 different names now and everything seems to be due at once. I’m not complaining! I wished for this and I got it, so I will NOT complain. However, it does mean that I have little time for anything but writing and making the odd Facebook or Twitter post. Recently I finally had to accept that I need to give some things up. I’ve been forgetting important dates, neglecting my hubby and basically forgetting to have a life outside of work. So, it’s with great sadness that I announce that I’m leaving the Jaunties. I hope to come back on occasion and guest post, but for now I have to say good-bye. It’s been a tremendous amount of fun being part of this blog and the fabulous women (and porcupine!) who run it. Thanks for everything!

hugs!

Kathryn

Last week I left Baby Galen and Ultimate Sportsfan for 36 hours to travel to Los Angeles for the Romantic Times Convention. I hadn’t planned on going. We just moved two weeks ago, and I was frazzled enough without trying to pack and prepare for a business trip.

But I had to go. You see, my hero Armand from THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN won the Historical K.I.S.S. (Knight in Shining Silver) Hero Award. I rarely win anything, much less an award, so I knew I had to be there to receive this one.

I’m so glad I went. The conference was really fun, L.A. was cold but awesome, and I got to hobnob with fellow Quills Jan Kenny and Kathryn Smith.

Have you ever won anything? Previously, I was pretty proud of the blueberry pie eating contest I won when I was 8.

When I began writing, I never thought about my author brand. I’m not a jar of peanut butter. I’m a person, right? Well, it turns out your author brand is kind of important because it’s reflected in your titles and covers and, obviously, your stories. My stories are different from everyone else’s stories, and I don’t mean that I write historicals and Kristan and Cindy write contemporaries. I mean, my historicals are different from Margo’s and Robyn’s too.

So what is my brand? What makes my stories unique?

I write books set around the Regency period of England. It’s referred to as the Regency because the Prince was declared regent and took control of his father’s powers when George III went quite mad. Actually, the Regency didn’t officially begin until 1810, and my stories are usually set in the early 1800s, but they’re still considered more Regency (lighter and faster) in tone than Georgian (a bit darker, heavier).

I write books that have a lot of adventure. My heroes and heroines are often threatened, shot at, forced to abscond through windows, and quick to jump on a schooner for Calais. They sneak into prisons, break into buildings, steal carriages, and all around get into quite a lot of trouble. My stories are fast-paced and exciting.

My heroes and heroines fall in love. First and foremost, I write romances. I write about a man and a woman who meet (or meet again) and fall madly in love. The road to true love is never easy, but they manage to find their way—while dodging a few bullets or cannonballs, as the case may be.

And this is why I’m so excited that I’m being re-branded. The cover for my next release, Lord and Lady Spy, reflects this re-branding. I’m going to have bolder titles and covers that really illustrate the kinds of stories I write.

The downside is that those of you looking for The Making of a Rogue are going to have to wait a little longer. It’s getting a whole new look (though the story will not change). It will be released February 2012, and the title may change. Click here to read early praise for the book.

In the meantime, I hope you’re excited that Lord and Lady Spy is now a September release! Here’s a little sneak-peek.

Meet Lord and Lady Smythe, England’s preeminent spies. Their identities are guarded even from each other. After years of secrets and lies, their marriage is little more than a crumbling façade. But even love isn’t as important as The Mission—to defeat Napoleon Bonaparte.

All’s fair in love and war.

So, I have news. Kinda big news. Recently I sold 3 Steampunk romances to NAL under the name of Kate Cross. Some of you are already aware that I have a Young Adult Steampunk series launching from Harlequin Teen in May. The first book is The Girl in the Steel Corset and it’s being published under the name Kady Cross.

I also just sold an urban fantasy series, which I’m not going to say much about because nothing has been signed yet and I don’t want to jinx anything. However, I am so excited I could squeal like a little girl. It’s also going to be written under a new name. Right now I’m gearing toward Kate Locke.

Yes, it’s a lot to absorb and a lot of change. Some of you many wonder what’s going to happen to Kathryn Smith — and that’s the rub. I’ve been Kathryn Smith my whole life, and Kathryn Smith professionally for more than 10 years. However, When Tempting a Rogue will be the last Kathryn Smith book for awhile, possibly forever. It feels… weird.

So why the change, you may ask? Well, in publishing there are all manner of factors — how different the new product is from what fans expect from Kathryn Smith, wanting a fresh start… My reasons were many. Mostly, I decided I needed a change, and a restart to my career. That doesn’t mean that giving up Kathryn Smith was easy. It wasn’t. It isn’t. However, I also want to give these new books the best chance they have to succeed, and sometimes that means a clean slate. I don’t want Kathryn Smith’s history (the good and bad) to influence these new books. However, I also want to make it easy for fans to find me, so I’m going to do all I can to make sure my current readers know I’ve made the change. Hopefully they’ll follow me.

Then there’s the fact that a pen name affords a certain amount of privacy. I can go out and put on the persona of Kady Cross and then come home and be plain ole Kate, which I have to admit, sounds good. In fact, if I could go back, I would write under a different name than Kathryn Smith right from the beginning.  Do you know a reader once said she wouldn’t read me because my name didn’t sound ‘historical romance enough’? It’s true, I swear.

This new venture is scary. I haven’t written anything for any publisher other than Avon (except for one short story) since they bought me in 1999. Now, I’m writing for 3 different — and new to me — publishers. Scary, and exciting. I find myself nervous about new territory and new working relationships, but at the same time the enthusiasm for these new projects has been infectious. I am so excited to be working on these books and with the chance to really push myself and see just what I’m capable of creating.

That’s my news. What do you think? Does it bother you when authors switch gears and change their names? Or do you follow ‘em regardless because you like their work? Fellow authors, have you played the name game? And who are some of your favorite authors who write under different names?

Most of my life has been sort of charmed. I don’t mean in the way that I’m beautiful or have everything that I desire; I mean that I’ve been happy. Really happy. The older I get the more I realize how

"Mom and Dad expecting me!"

lucky I am to have been born to my parents who are truly great people. They are incapable of saying no. I don’t mean in the spoiling your kids rotten way, I heard no often enough growing up and we didn’t have a lot of material things, but as I got older I needed someone when times got tough I knew I could always just call my mom or dad and say I need you and they’d be there.

A few years ago my really good friend Beverly Brandt had been nominated for a RITA for her book the TIARA CLUB and she couldn’t find the exact dress she wanted. My mom (and all the women in my family) sews. So I said to B that my mom could do it. I said to this to her as we were talking on the phone so she knew I had no time to call my mom and ask her, I just knew that mom would never say no to something like this. But what I realized after Beverly and I finished talking was that my mom wouldn’t say no to me.

I’ve tried to be that way with my kids. I don’t say yes to everything only the really important things. The things that can change their lives and make a difference, the things that will show and remind them that the world should be a nicer place.

My heroine in TAMING THE VIP PLAYBOY has this same kind of charmed upbringing (to be honest I based her loosely on my youngest sister). She was a very talented dancer from a young age and her parents and her older sister sacrificed to make sure that Jen was taken to dance rehearsals and eventually to competitions. They did this not because they had to but because they realized that Jen lived to dance and that she needed their support. She needed to safety net of her family to fall back on.

And in the book Jen is falling from some really tough breaks. For the first time in her life, she’s not feeling very charmed. This happened to me almost four years ago and I had no idea who to turn to, but instinctively went first to my parents and then my closest friends for support. In TAMING THE VIP PLAYBOY Jen’s parents are dead and she has only her older sister and young nephew to turn to, which she does. And they offer her a safety net that she uses to rebuild her life and to some extent herself.

I’m not sure what kind of family you have. My wise friend Beverly says we build the families we didn’t have from the friends we choose and I feel very lucky that I have both a great family to start with and one that I’ve built from friends.

I hope you all will check out TAMING THE VIP PLAYBOY its in stores today. And for one lucky blog participant I will send an autographed copy of the book.

Tell me in what ways are you charmed? Is it by your family or maybe you have an incredible talent? What is it that makes you special?