Please give a warm Mt. Oly welcome to the wonderful Mary Balogh! She is graciously kicking off our 3rd Anniversary week!

Mary Balogh is the author of more than 60 published novels and over 30 novellas and has met with critical success. She has received numerous awards, including a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Regency Short Stories in 1993 and has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list.

BRINGING BACK OLD BOOKS

I have a backlist dating back to 1985. Bantam Dell is republishing some of my old books. The first of five two-in-one editions, Dark Angel/Lord Carew’s Bride, will be out at the end of February. I have had a fundamental decision to make—whether to make changes to the books or not.

There are definite temptations to do some rewriting. I have changed as a person and as a writer since I was first published, I hope for the better in both cases! There are all sorts of details I would love to change. Some are purely factual. In one trilogy (the WEB books), the second son of the family was Lord Eden. Of course he ought not to have had a title at all, and I could correct that nasty error after all these years. Other details concern style and outlook on life. I used to write with far more interior monologue and less action and dialogue that I do now. I could get rid of much of the “heavy” stuff.

There are arguments against change, however. Many loyal readers remember those books and love them as they are. And the books represent me as I was when they were written. I hesitate to quote scripture, but Jesus once warned about trying to patch an old garment with new cloth. If I make factual changes in order to correct an error, I change the fabric of the book. Lord Eden, for example, becomes Mr. Dominic Raine, and seems like a wholly new character. If I cut introspection and add more dialogue, I am speaking in my present voice, not the voice with which I spoke then.

I have made no changes to my republished books. For me the cons outweigh the pros. I would rather spend my time writing something new. The clincher for me is that I am a reader as well as a writer, and I know that without exception, I always hate books that have been expanded or otherwise revised before they are republished. It feels like a betrayal, like the loss of an old friend.

So, am I right or am I wrong? Or are there sometimes good reasons for making changes and sometimes good reasons for keeping an old book as it is?

For more information about Dark Angel/Lord Carew’s Bride, and to read excerpts, see my web site.

Mary has kindly offered one commentor a signed copy of Dark Angel/Lord Carew’s Bride as a prize today! Please note that the prize will be mailed at the end of February when Mary has received her author copies.

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Susan Mallery is the New York Times bestselling author of over one hundred romances and she has yet to run out of ideas!!

Susan makes her home in the Pacific Northwest where, rumor has it, all that rain helps with creativity. She is married to a fabulous hero-like husband and has a six pound toy poodle…who is possibly the cutest dog on the planet.

The Christmas Introvert

I find the human race to be endlessly moving and amusing. One of the things I find most fascinating about people are the inherent contradictions in each of us. Although I truly do love people, I mostly love them one at a time. Crowds can be overwhelming. (Fortunately, people at book signings fall into the “one at a time” category. I delight in making that one-on-one connection with my readers.) Crowds make me long for a quiet room and a glass of good wine.

How do you avoid crowds but still get your full dose of holiday spirit? Today’s technology offers many joys for the Christmas Introvert:

Facebook and Twitter. Who needs to go to a Christmas party when you’ve got the fun of social networking? On my Facebook page, we play games, gossip about celebrities, share funny videos and pictures, and even have some pretty deep conversations. Like every good group of girlfriends, my Fans and Followers cheer on my successes. When HOT ON HER HEELS hit the New York Times list at #5, they were almost as excited as I was.

Video Streaming. Oh… my… God. Words cannot express the depth of my love for video streaming. You can watch made-for-TV Christmas movies online whenever you want. Lifetime has them here.  ABC Family has them at this link. Who wouldn’t love a movie titled “The Dog Who Saved Christmas”?

Online Shopping. Turn on a CD of Christmas music, fire up your computer, and you can get the full mall experience… minus circling the parking lot.

Christmas Cooking. When I’m in the mood to make something special, I often find recipes online. I decided this year to host a Christmas cookie exchange for my readers. Instead of exchanging cookies, we’ll exchange recipes and, I hope, pictures of the cookies. You’ll find the link at www.SusanMallery.com.

An Old-Fashioned Christmas. The number one way I get into the holiday spirit doesn’t require modern technology. I love reading Christmas romances. eHarlequin has created a whole separate category on their website to make it handy for readers like me to find those irresistible tales of holiday magic. Because I love writing Christmas stories, too, my books HIGH POWERED, HOT BLOODED and CHRISTMAS IN WHITEHORN are there. I’ve picked up Kasey Michaels’ THE TYCOON’S SECRET, Nancy Robard Thompson’s ACCIDENTAL CINDERELLA, and Allison Leigh’s A WEAVER HOLIDAY HOMECOMING. Nothing better than a cup of hot chocolate and a heartwarming Christmas story.

How do you get into the holiday spirit? If reading is part of your annual routine, tell me about the books you’ve read so far this year, and the books that remain on your wishlist. What are your favorite Christmas movies?

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During her frequent travels through England, Liz Carlyle always packs her pearls, her dancing slippers, and her whalebone corset, confident in the belief that eventually she will receive an invitation to a ball or a rout. Alas, none has been forthcoming. While waiting, however, she has managed to learn where all the damp, dark alleys and low public houses can be found. Liz hopes she has brought just a little of the nineteenth century alive for the reader in her popular novels.

Oooh, I feel so vindicated . . .

I love studies, don’t you? It seems some think tank or university is forever doing one, mostly to tell us stuff we kinda-sorta already knew. Just recently, for example, I’ve learned that tanning beds can be as dangerous as arsenic (can you spell M-E-L-A-N-O-M-A?) and that certain weight loss drugs can cause liver failure, and should be used only after careful consideration. (Personally, I think weight loss should always be given careful consideration. And I’ve been thinking about it for a looong time . . . )

But there was a headline in my local paper last week that finally made me pump my fist in the air:

Study Shows Multitaskers Do It Badly

Plodders and planners everywhere, shout it out with me! Yes! We already knew that! Not since the Rutgers study showing the inverse relationship between self-doubt and good judgment have I felt so vindicated. In my past life, when I would from time to time find myself looking for a Real Job, all the advertisements would say—somewhere in the first line—must be a self-starter, capable of multitasking.

Tsk, tsk, I would say to my anal, organized self. Multitasking is just another word for doing a bunch of things half-assed all at once. Making things twice as mucked up as they would have been had you gone at ’em one at a time. (Preferably in alphabetical order.) Yes, I’m a self starter. I just can’t self-start two things at once. So what’s an honest gal to do? Well, you lie. Yes, I would boldly state, I can multitask. It just sounds way more exciting than saying, “No—but I can do one thing at a time really, really well . . . ”

So nowadays I find it convenient to work for myself. At home. Alone. Where no one can un-sort my color-coded Pendaflex file folders. And I guess I’m out of practice with my multitasking. Last time I tried it, I backed my Volvo into the freezer and ejected a Pink Martini CD into the passenger seat—all at the same time.

So what about you? Are you Boringly Organized? Or Boldly Spontaneous? And what’s the funniest thing you ever did in the midst of multitasking? And by the way—does your freezer still seal? Because there’s some funky black mold growing down one side of mine.

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Tessa Dare is a part-time librarian, full-time mommy and swing-shift writer living in Southern California.

As a girl, she discovered that no matter how many times she moved, two kinds of friends traveled with her: the friends in books, and the friends in her head. She still converses with both sets daily.

Tessa writes fresh and flirty historical romance, a blog, and the stray magazine article. To the chagrin of her family, Tessa does not write grocery lists, Christmas cards, or timely checks to utility companies. She shares a tiny bungalow with her husband, their two children, a dog, and many dust bunnies.

Hello, Goddesses! Thank you so much for having me here today. It’s an honor to be here amongst so many authors I admire! I feel rather out of my league, but since my debut book was called Goddess of the Hunt, maybe I can fake my divine credentials. *g*

Goddess was the first in a back-to-back trilogy, and the second book, Surrender of a Siren, is in stores now. The heroine, Sophia Hathaway, is a runaway bride in search of passion and adventure. She’s decided to talk her way onto a ship bound for the West Indies, which she assumes will be a very romantic destination. But as Sophia and I both learned in the writing of the book, the West Indies weren’t all that romantic at this point in history. And ocean voyages during that era bore no resemblance whatsoever to a Carnival cruise.

As the book’s hero, Gray, tries to warn her at the outset:

“Miss Turner,” he said dryly, “I’m certain in that fertile female imagination of yours, you think sailing off to the West Indies will be some grand, romantic adventure.” He drawled the phrase in a patronizing tone, but Sophia wasn’t certain he meant to deride her. Rather, she surmised, his tone communicated a general weariness with adventure.
How sad.
“Fortunately,” he continued, “I’ve never known a girl I couldn’t disillusion, so listen close to me now. You’re wrong. You will not find adventure, nor romance. At best, you’ll meet with unspeakable boredom. At worst, you’ll meet with an early death.”

Sophia is undeterred (read: desperate), and she makes the voyage anyway. And of course, it wouldn’t be a romance novel if she didn’t get her sweeping, passionate romance in the end. But this got me thinking about activities and destinations that are much more appealing in fiction than they turn out to be in real life. For example, convertibles are bad hair waiting to happen. Making love on a beach? Gritty. Thank goodness we have romance novels, where the heroines are their most beautiful with no makeup, all the heroes have endless leg strength, and sand never gets in unfortunate places.

On our Hawaiian honeymoon, I foolishly decided that Mr. Dare and I should get in some romantic snorkeling the morning after we arrived (a trip that involved five airplanes—don’t ask). Of course, I had more optimism than equilibrium by that point. Two minutes into our power catamaran ride, and I was hanging over the rail. Spent the entire snorkeling trip dog-sick.

Tessa has a copy of Surrender of a Siren to share with one lucky commentor!

How about you—have you ever planned a “romantic” trip or activity, only to find it didn’t live up the imagination? Or perhaps the reverse: a setting that was unexpectedly romantic?

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New York Times Bestselling Author Brenda Novak has three novels coming out this summer—The Perfect Couple, The Perfect Liar and The Perfect Murder, all part of her popular Last Stand Series. She also runs an annual on-line auction for diabetes research every May at www.brendanovak.com. To date, she’s raised over $770,000. Brenda considers herself lucky to be a mother of five and married to the love of her life.

When I attended the RWA National conference in Washington DC last month, I heard New York Times Bestselling Author Susan Elizabeth Phillips say a writer needs to find her “core story.” From the context of her talk, I took this to mean that each writer needs to find the theme that really resonates with her, that by doing this her story will become deeper and more meaningful.

That got me thinking. I write suspense. What is my core story? Is it about the murder and mayhem in my books? No. Not any more than romance is all about the sex.

To be honest, I hadn’t quite decided how to define my core story until I received a nasty e-mail from someone who was quite put off by the actions of the villain in The Perfect Couple (I have to admit, Colin Bell is probably one of the most frightening villains I’ve ever written or read about—although Kalyna Harter in The Perfect Liar runs a close second). This disgruntled “reader” went on to say that suspense authors are basically sell-outs and blamed my publisher for corrupting me, since I used to write stories that were much more to her liking (translated: sweet with no diabolical villain). It was tempting to educate her on the differences between the genres and how covers signal that difference, but I digress. Her harsh criticism really made me stop and evaluate—why do I write suspense? What is my message?

And then it hit me. My core story is about survival and endurance and championing over all odds (no matter how daunting or terrifying). Bad people do bad things and good people have to figure out how to survive and overcome them. I believe it’s possible. I like the determination I feel when good and evil go to battle. I believe good will eventually conquer and love to see it played out on the page. I also love redemption themes.

What about you? What themes are you most attracted to? And which books best exemplify those themes? One lucky visitor will receive an autographed copy of The Perfect Couple and another will receive an autographed copy of The Perfect Liar, which is just out this week!

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Please welcome Mary Jo Putney to Mt. Oly! Mary Jo has been so incredibly kind to offer a signed book from her backlist to one commentor.

Welcome Mary Jo!

It’s great to be in Goddess Land! Because we’ve all been laboring so long in diverse vineyards of romance, I know many of the goddesses already, so it’s Old Home Week here in Olympus.

Today is the official release date of my first straight historical romance in several years, and I have to admit that I’ve reverted to one of my bad writing habits by killing off the hero again. Of course, this is romance—it’s not hard to figure out that my half-Hindu duke may not be as dead as is generally presumed.

Even though my second Regency romance, written over twenty years ago, had a hero who was dying of his Waterloo wounds and a heroine who wanted to be a merry widow, it was only a couple of years ago that I realized just how often my heroes (and more rarely, my heroines) barely survive my attentions. Somewhere off in Character Land, I imagine handsome, honorable studs and strong, compassionate females fleeing when there’s a casting call for my books. But they can’t escape me for long!

Death as a plotting device has a lot of merit because it raises the stakes for the reader. The story is literally a matter of life and death. Lots and lots of writers do it; even Shakespeare is solidly in that pack.

Besides, I adore over the top plot elements—which is why in Loving a Lost Lord, the hero is not only missing and presumed dead, but amnesiac when the heroine drags him up on a shingle beach in the far north of England, barely alive.

Amnesia is a jolly plot element, but also, an intriguing puzzle. What is a person when memory and inhibition are stripped away? What is a man or woman when he or she is no longer constrained by the expectations of others? What emerges then? Does the amnesiac person have the chance to become a truer, more honest self?

I’d like to think so. Certainly that’s what I did with Adam, the Duke of Ashton, who has deliberately concealed the Hindu side of his nature so he can appear to be a proper English gentleman. That works until his near fatal accident and his meeting with a beautiful woman who has reasons of her own to claim him as her husband. At the end, Adam and Mariah have both been through a lot, but they’re grateful that I brought them together. (They’re swearing to keep any offspring out of my dangerous hands, though. )

Historical romance is saturated with false identities, amnesia, switched identical twins, highwaymen in disguise, girls dressed as guys, etc. It’s all good fun, and heaven knows I’ve done more than my share! Loving a Lost Lord is the first of my new Lost Lords series. It should be rather like my Fallen Angels series, but instead of Eton being the bond that holds the heroes together, I invented the Westerfield Academy, a school for “boys of good birth and bad behavior.” The academy was founded by an eccentric duke’s daughter to provide a refuge for aristocratic boys who are square pegs in round holes.

The series will be open ended—I’ve already written the first two books (the second is scheduled for May 2010), and I have characters and general story ideas for several more. And as I look at these future books—presumed death and masquerades and even a pair of identical twins figure prominently. This is obviously what my Muse likes, and she isn’t budging!

How about you as readers? What are your favorite plot devices? The ones you can’t stand? The ones you can’t stand, but you’ll read them anyhow if done by a favorite writer? I’d love to talk about it!

Mary Jo Putney, thanking the Goddesses for letting me visit

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Please welcome guest goddess Teresa Medeiros to Mt. Oly!

Teresa’s romances regularly appear on the New York Times, Publishers Weekly and USA Today bestseller lists. She’s a two-time winner of the Waldenbooks Award for Bestselling Fiction, a seven-time finalist for the highest award given by the Romance Writers of America, the RITA, and winner of the Romantic Times Award for Best Historical Love and Laughter.

That’s right. The Goddesses are trotting out yet another desperate guest blogger who’s going to pretend to be wildly clever and engaging just so you’ll rush out and buy her latest release. As the aforementioned wildly clever and engaging author, I decided to just skip the foreplay and give you the TOP TEN REASONS YOU SHOULD BUY SOME LIKE IT WILD:

1) Frappucinos don’t come cheap. At $3.71 a pop, I need at least $60 a month just to support my Starbucks habit. (And detox at a clinic in Switzerland is going to be even MORE pricey!)

2) Cats need kibble. As you can see from this pic, the economy already has my cats Buffy and Willow the Mouse Slayer worried about where their next packet of Tender Vittles will be coming from. (Or to be grammatically correct—from whence their next packet of Tender Vittles will…oh…never mind.)

3) You can stimulate the economy.

4) You can stimulate yourself. (Hey, get your minds out of the gutter! I meant you could stimulate your IMAGINATION.)

5) A Psychology Today study has proven that women who read romance have 78% more sex than women who don’t. And most of them are even having it with their husbands.

6) At the end of SOME LIKE IT WICKED (the first book in this series), Catriona’s long lost brother Connor was about to meet a grim fate. Aren’t you just the least bit curious to find out what happened to him?

7) If you don’t buy this book, I could end up being reduced to eating McDonald’s on the floor of the airport with Suzie Enoch for the rest of my life. (We were only a french fry away from having someone drop a quarter in our Coke cups.)

Romance novels are still an incredible entertainment value. I promise to whisk you away to the splendor of the Scottish Highlands and the exquisite glamour of the Regency London ballroom where an incredibly hot, brawny Highlander will make mad, passionate love to you for hours on end while proclaiming his eternal devotion. And all for only $7.99!

9) So my publisher will offer me another contract.

10) So I can write more books that will bring me back to the Goddess Blogs where I will once again sacrifice all pride and good taste so I can beg you to buy them.

So what was the last book YOU bought and exactly why did you buy it? (For me it was SO ENCHANTING by Connie Brockway and DANGER IN A RED DRESS by Christina Dodd. I bought them because Connie and Christina know where I live and they would have come over and beaten me up if I hadn’t.)

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