What do you consider really romantic? As in “never forget it and get a warm glow from the memory romantic.”

I find myself remembering an assortment of things. Some are sort of typical. For example, my dh still brings me flowers. For no particular reason. He is out and about in town, and comes home with a bunch of them for me. My heart still does a little flip when that happens. It is the unexpectedness of it that touches me.

One of my most romantic moments, however, had nothing to do with flowers or any of the other trappings of romance. I had just given birth to our first son and was in the recovery room. The memory of him taking that baby in his arms and looking down in awe still chokes me up.

Others have different views from mine on this. For example, I had a friend once who had very strict criteria for romance.  Not just any flowers, but roses. Not just any date, but a great restaurant. She even had decided how big her engagement ring would have to be to qualify for a memorably romantic proposal.  

I received a fan letter once from a husband of a reader. I thought what he described was incredibly romantic, but I don’t think he did.  He wrote to say how much his wife loved my books, and that when one came out he bought it for her and kept the kids busy that weekend so she could read at her leisure. This woman had 5 children, a full-time job, and went to school. His thoughtfulness in creating a little reading holiday for her really touched me, as did his note to let me know my role in his romantic gesture for this woman.

What do you consider memorably romantic?

What was the most romantic thing that ever happened to you?

Have there been scenes in books that you thought  were incredibly, memorably  romantic?

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Use this!

In this time of thrift and penny pinching, I’ve found myself going back to the old ways of doing things. I enjoy this — it speaks to the dark, thrifty reaches of my soul and makes my pocketbook smile.

Here are some examples:

Lemons in your garbage disposal makes it smell fresh and sunny!

One cup of white vinegar with a gallon of water will get pet odors out of carpet.

Cinnamon or ground pepper can be used as an ‘ant barrier’ wherever ants are getting into the house.

To polish copper, rub an ample amount of ketchup on the copper and let it stand for 5 minutes. Rinse off the ketchup with hot water and dry to find an incredible shine.

Car smell like french fries? Put some dryer sheets under the seats and change them every week!

Do you have any great, thrifty household tips? Any inexpensive ‘fixes’ for common, every day problems? Share them with us now! In these difficult economic times, it pays to save.

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Today’s the day!  Doomsday Can Wait hits the shelves.

I have loved writing this series.  Love the heroine, Liz Phoenix, love the heroes, Jimmy and Sawyer.  Love finding and fiddling with new “creatures” for Liz to either fight or adopt into the federation.

Since the first book, Any Given Doomsday, was released a lot of readers have wondered if there’ll be more of Sawyer–the Navajo shaman.  And in this book there is.  Because Sawyer’s mother, the Mommy Dearest of all time, is back and she has decided Liz needs to die.

Yeah, good luck with that.

I’ve always loved action movies, thrillers, things that move along.  So when I write, I try to make my books reflect that.  

Doomsday Can Wait starts off with a bang and keeps rolling from there.  Eloisa James told me once that these books are “like Gothics on speed.”  I thought that was perfect.  Thanks, Eloisa!

I’ve brought a little excerpt for you today of DCW.  You can find the rest on my website, along with a fabulous book trailer produced like a graphic novel.  

Let me know what you think.  

Then run right out and get your copy of Doomsday Can Wait!

DOOMSDAY CAN WAIT-

On the night all hell broke loose—again—I was working a double shift.  The evening bartender had come down with a case of the “I’d rather be at Summerfest” blues, and I couldn’t walk out at the end of my scheduled hours and leave Megan alone to deal with the dinner rush.

Not that there was much of one.  Summerfest, Milwaukee’s famous music festival on the lake, drew most of the party crowd.  A few off duty cops drifted in now and then, they were the mainstay of Megan’s business, but in truth, Murphy’s was the deadest I’d ever seen it.  Hell, the place was empty.  Which made it easy for the woman who appeared at dusk to draw my attention. 

Tall and slim and dark, she strolled in on dangerously high heels.  Her hair was up in a fancy twist I never could have managed, even if my own hair were longer than the nape of my neck.  Her white suit made her bronze skin and the copper pendant revealed by the plunging neckline of her jacket gleam in the half-light.

Megan took one look, rolled her eyes and retreated to the kitchen.  She had no patience for lawyers.  Did anyone?  This woman’s clothes, heels, carriage screamed bloodsucker.  In my world, there was always great concern that the term was literal.  I nearly laughed out loud when she ordered Cabernet.

“With that suit?” I asked.  

Her lips curved; her perfectly plucked eyebrows lifted past the rims of her self-regulating sunglasses, which had yet to lighten even though she’d stepped indoors.  I could see only the shadow of her eyes beyond the lenses.  Brown, perhaps black.  Definitely not blue like mine.

The cheekbones and nose hinted at Indian blood somewhere in her past, as did the dusky shade of her skin.  Mine was the same hue.  I’d been told I was mixed race, but I had no idea what that mix was.  Who I’d been before I’d become Elizabeth Phoenix was as much a mystery to me as the identity of my parents.

“You think I’d spill a single drop?” she murmured in a smoky voice.

How could something sound like smoke?  I’d never understood that term.  But as soon as she spoke, it suddenly became clear to me.  She sounded like a gray, hot mist that could kill you.

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I was trying to think of a subtle way to start a conversation where I could mention that “hey, by the way, my new book comes out tomorrow”. Then I decided to just come out and say it, because everybody would figure out what I was up to, anyway.

So tomorrow is the official release date for my new book and the final entry in the Notorious Gentlemen trilogy, Always a Scoundrel. The last of that naughty trio of friends, Lord Bramwell Lowry Johns, who knows he’s the baddest boy around and thinks nothing can surprise him, finds himself both surprised and set against a man even worse than himself – his own mentor.

And then there’s Rosamund Davies, the sensible one in her family, trying to hold everything together and keep herself and her impulsive younger brother out of trouble. Trouble, though is precisely what’s headed for her – and so is help, though from the least likely source imaginable.

The fun with Always a Scoundrel was in creating two bad boys: one redeemable, and one not. Finding that one line that a hero can’t cross while obliterating every other one in sight gave me some places to go that I hadn’t traveled before. My editor says it’s my darkest book yet, but I also think it’s one of the most humorous. How could it not be, with Bram involved? (These are a couple of my inspirational Bram photos, by the way.)

Who’s the baddest boy you’ve read? Have you tried to like a bad boy but found that he crossed that line? And what’s your line-that-can’t-be-crossed where a hero is concerned ? Oh, and are you going to buy Always a Scoundrel?

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We’re lucky to have the time to stop by Scotland before we head to the airport and take off for another week of our FROS International Hot Guy Tour!

So come this way, my dearies, and see what delicious treat awaits us in Glasgow!

Oh yeah, a little Gerard Butler recharge in Scotland before we head to the airport and continue our arduous search for international beauties! It’s tiring, but SOMEONE has to find all of these gorgeous FROS. All together now, AHHHH, WASN’T THAT REFRESHING!

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Have you ever wondered who writes the copy on the back covers of romance novels, more informally known as “back blurbs”? The process is a little different for each publishing house, but basically someone comes up with a first draft (often the copy department or editor) and then a lot of other people have their say, including the author, marketing, and sales.

I’m here to tell you that it can be frustrating experience. Try describing the core romantic premise of a book, making the characters sound intriguing and larger than life, conveying the tone of the writing, and hinting at subplots and resolutions, all in less than 200 words.

There’s a real art to writing blurbs that make a book leap off the shelves into readers’ hands. After author name and cover art, the back copy is frequently what tips the decision whether or not to spend hard-earned money.

My heart sank this week when I got the first version blurb for my next novel. My beautiful story and witty, wonderful characters just sat there on the page looking flat, boring, and unromantic. With a title like TO TAME A DANGEROUS LORD, you’d think the hero ought to sound sexy and macho, but no, he came across as a total wimp. The heroine, who should have appeared spirited and capable of taming a sexy, dangerous guy, sounded like a mamby-pamby dunce. But since good blurbs are crucial to sales, I spent a lot of time rewriting mine into something I love, one that I hope will appeal to readers as well.

Readers, how much do back blurbs influence your decision to buy a book? Can you think of any examples that swayed you one way or the other? Authors, do you have much say in your back cover copy? And is it a pleasant or frustrating experience for you?

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Have you ever wondered what you’d do for money? On Easter, my daughter’s girlfriend’s son ate a worm for two buck. I’ve seen people eat roaches and pig penises for fifty grand or for something far less worth it, a shot at love with Tila Tequila. Personally, I don’t think I could eat a worm or a roach or a pig penis for any amount of money. Once I saw a man eat a grasshopper and I’m still traumatized.

In my book, True Love And Other Disasters, the heroine, Faith Duffy, marries a man fifty-one years older than herself. He’s a billionaire who offers her a million dollars for every year that she stays married to him. When he dies five years later, he leaves her not only the millions, but his NHL hockey team, too. Suddenly she owns twenty-four hot, buff, hockey players. Of course the hero of the book, team captain Ty Savage, isn’t happy to find himself suddenly owned by a trophy wife.

Would you marry a sugar daddy? How much would be enough to marry say . . . J. Howard Marshall? If you wouldn’t marry for money, what would you do for a million bucks? On the flip side, is there something that you would never do. Not even for money. Me, I would never eat a grasshopper or sky dive. And I would never be caught dead in a pair of Crocs.

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