Louisa Edwards | Where Does Character Inspiration Come From?

A question I hear a lot is: "Where do you get your inspiration for your characters?" Adam Temple, the hero of Can’t Stand the Heat, is a chef-imagine Anthony Bourdain (for the hotness) crossed with Jamie Oliver (for the sweetness), and a pinch of Gordon Ramsay (for the perfectionism).

When Adam is in the kitchen, he’s in charge. And he loves every second of it. In fact, that’s the key to Adam’s personality-he loves a lot of things. He loves his life, his job, his friends...it’s not hard or frightening for him to fall in love with the heroine, Miranda. He brings passion and enthusiasm to everything he does.

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Karen Kelley l Remembering the Hippie Days

Headbands, bell-bottoms, love beads, and Janis Joplin. Don’t worry about tomorrow, enjoy today. Getting back to nature, organic food….

I don’t know, maybe it’s the economy or something, but Karl and I planted a garden this year. We planted plenty of squash, peppers, and tomatoes because we figured some of the plants would die. They didn’t. Our freezer is almost full of squash (we have a small chest size freezer), but the tomatoes are getting ripe now. I’ve put squash in stir-fry, soups, spaghetti, and pizza. I’m going to need some more squash recipes. I’ve been wondering about squash wine. What do y’all think?

The strangest thing has happened, though. I’m losing weight. By “bulking” up my food with lots of veggies, I don’t get hungry nearly as often. Crazy, isn’t it? Okay, now I have something to control my appetite, I wondered what would happen if I started exercising, just a short workout on the treadmill. I started out at 15 minutes, and that was pushing it. I’m a writer, and I sit on my butt every day so I have no exertion level. Zilch, none. I’ve lost 15 pounds! I’m empowered, look out world!

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TJ Bennett |An Interview With

TJ Bennett is the author of "Dark and Daring Romance" and a former Romance Writers of America Golden Heart nominee. TJ writes "outside the box" historical romance featuring richly detailed settings and unusual subjects. Her critically-acclaimed debut novel, THE LEGACY, was rated a "Buried Treasure 2008" and a “Desert Isle Keeper” by the influential reader site All About Romance. The Historical Novel Society deemed THE LEGACY “a solid historical romance from a promising debut author.” THE LEGACY, set in 16th century Reformation Germany during the Peasant Revolution, was also a finalist in the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence contest, the Book Buyers Best Award, and the Holt Medallion. TJ’s newest release, THE PROMISE, follows a mercenary during Charles V’s Italian campaigns. THE PROMISE was awarded TOP PICK status by Night Owl Romance and given four stars by Romantic Times BOOKReviews, which called TJ an “author to watch.” Eye on Romance’s Historical Romance Writers’ reviewer says TJ is a “master at writing historical fiction.”

FF: Welcome to Fresh Fiction, TJ. Tell us a little more about your work.

TJ: I’d like to thank Fresh Fiction for having me here today to talk about my latest release, THE PROMISE. This is a story of love, redemption, and the power of a promise. In 1525, a German mercenary (a Landsknecht) in the service of Emperor Charles V must overcome his own wounded heart and convince a reluctant widow to marry him in order to keep a promise to a dying friend. A gypsy’s curse on every man who loves her forces the Spanish beauty to rebuff him, but their passion for one another is stronger than the mysterious misfortune that seems to plague any with the courage to defy the curse. THE PROMISE features the brother of my printer hero from THE LEGACY, my debut novel.


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Karin Tabke | Bouncing Off the Walls!

If someone doesn’t glue me down soon I’m going to hurt myself. Why all the extra energy? Lot’s of reasons. Despite this economic downturn and the lull in publishing, romance has not only survived, it’s thriving!

Take that, literary snobs! Okay, that isn’t nice, but it’s how I feel. Would someone please tell me what is so bad about losing yourself in a passionate love story? One that ends with a Happily Ever After? Hot heroes to die for, heroines we’d like to befriend and that warm fuzzy feeling we get when we read The End. How can anyone have issues with that?

Not me, and I don’t defend romance either. I blow off the snarky comments with a shrug of my shoulders and a suggestion to the naysayer that perhaps they might want professional help to deal with that cynical chip on their shoulder. Okay, maybe that is a wee bit defensive, but it’s true!

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Joy Nash | Birth Order and Writing

Oldest? Middle? Youngest? Only?

Does your position in your birth family determine aspects of your personality? May psychologists believe that it does. A glance around my own birth family (6 siblings), as well as the family I gave birth to (3 kids), tells me there’s a nugget of truth in birth-order/personality theories.

An added bonus: yet another character-creation aid for writers. When I dreamed up the various members of the Santangelo family in A Little Light Magic (Leisure Books, May 26), I kept birth order personality traits in mind. Here’s a quick rundown:

Nick Santangelo (hero of A Little Light Magic): The classic oldest child. Conservative, responsible, workaholic, protector, doesn’t like to take risks. Nick’s a business owner, which is not unusual for an oldest child. He’s used to making decisions and giving orders (having practiced in childhood on his younger brothers). He doesn’t often let loose and just have fun – everything’s tied up in work and responsibility for Nick.

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Dana Marton | Daydreaming

I love a great many things about romance, but I like the fantasy aspect the most. Daydreaming is such a wonderful pastime, isn’t it? And it’s free! I did get to indulge in a big way while writing SAVED BY THE MONARCH.

Since I’m scared to death of flying, I make a point to do it at least once a year. If there’s anything I’ve learned from my intrepid heroines, it’s that life is too short to let fear win. When I travel, I see as people wait for their loved ones at airports, or for strangers holding up signs with names. And since I’m a writer, I see book ideas everywhere…

What if someone went on vacation to Europe, to a small kingdom her parents had left behind when she’d been a very young child? And what if the surprise of a lifetime waited for her when she arrived?

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Deidre Knight | It’s a Crazy, Small, Connected World!

Recently Samhain Publishing released a true book of my heart, BUTTERFLY TATTOO. This edgy and genre-bending contemporary romance is my seventh published book although it was the very first one that my agent shopped on my behalf. The winding path this novel took before becoming published is a true study in how important relationships are, not only in publishing, but in all walks of life.

I thought it might be interesting for my friends and readers to learn the crazy relationship connections that are involved in my road to publication. The story begins with Louisa Edwards, the editor who ultimately bought my first book, PARALLEL ATTRACTION. Louisa is literally one of my favorite people in all of publishing. We’ve worn a lot of hats together, and it’s almost amusing as time goes on to see just how many caps and beanies we can swap.

While Louisa was still an editor at Penguin Putnam, I placed three authors with her, and we always felt that our tastes overlapped and blended almost mystically. So when my agent Pamela Harty—a super goddess among agents, by the way—shared BUTTERFLY TATTOO with her, Louisa fell in love. I mean, head-tripping-over-heels, crazy in love. She fought hard to acquire the novel, but ultimately the book was just too edgy and ahead of its time. Still, Louisa’s love for BUTTERFLY opened a critical door for me and just a few months later, it led to her snapping up my paranormal series that debuted with PARALLEL ATTRACTION.

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Lauren Dane | Relentless

We’ve all got tropes we like – assassin heroes, marriage of convenience, small town romance, older man/younger woman (or vice versa), uber alpha heroes, beta heroes, certain historical periods (me? I love me some wallpaper regencies), friends to lovers, whatever your preferences may be – we’ve all got em.

Relentless is a story of opposites. In Abbie, we have a woman without political power. In the world I built for my Federation books, the haves are Ranked. As in they are members of the ruling Families who hold the reins of political and economic power across all the Federation Universes. Everyone else is unranked and therefore able to rise only so high.

So Abbie is unranked. She’s also a barrister, a public defender if you will and she has spent her adult life working to bring a more representative form of governance to her home ‘Verse. She’s small and fiery and full of passion and conviction.

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Bella Andre | The one where she becomes a romance writer....

My mother and I don't always see eye to eye, but the one thing we always have agreed on are romance novels. We absolutely love them. One of my main memories as a child was going to the library with my mother every Sunday, where she'd exchange her stack of hardcover romances for a new stack of books. As soon as I was old enough to have run through the Judy Blume books, I made my way over to romances. And was hooked. Little did I know that I would be writing them one day. (And that my mother would be reading them. But that's another article, entirely!)

Like many writers, I took the long way around to becoming an erotic romance author. I graduated from Stanford with an Economics degree in 1994, but really, I knew I was never going to become a management consultant. No, I wanted to be a rock star. So I recorded 4 CDs, played 1,000+ shows throughout North America, had a turn at being a star in Brazil, and then said, "Okay, what's next?" Somewhere along the way when my bank account was looking worse for the wear, I worked as a Director of Marketing for a dot com. No, I didn't get rich, but I did decide that come hell or high water I was going to make a living with creative pursuits. So I wrote two books on the music business, sold them, joined a local writer's group and uttered the words, "I could never write fiction. I can't believe that characters just start having a conversation in people's heads. How weird."

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Vanessa Kelly | WHAT IS IT ABOUT SISTERS?

What is it about the topic of sisters that causes so much controversy? My new Regency-set historical, Mastering The Marquess, is partly a story about a pair of sisters, and the life-threatening situation they confront together. Meredith, my heroine, will do anything to keep her little sister Annabel out of harm’s way—even if it means putting her own life at risk. And she does that without blaming Annabel for their predicament, or feeling resentful that she must potentially sacrifice her own chance for happiness.

Meredith’s selflessness didn’t seem odd or out of character to me, likely because I have an older sister who has always been uber-protective of her siblings. She would take on a herd of charging elephants without a second thought if it meant keeping me or my brothers safe. But to my surprise, a few readers of Mastering The Marquess expressed discomfort with Meredith’s willingness to sacrifice herself for Annabel. They thought their relationship was too perfect—that real sisters fought more, and that Meredith should, at the very least, be resentful of Annabel. That took me aback since I can count the number of times I’ve fought with my sister on one hand, with a few fingers still left over. Maybe I’ve been lucky and I just happened to win the grand prize in the sister lottery, or it could be that we’re just a pair of really irritating goody two-shoes!

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The Heroes of Touch a Dark Wolf, Lure of the Wolf, Kiss of Darkness, and Bride of the Wolf by Jennifer St. Giles.

Looking over the four scowling, muscled men surrounding me at the picnic-style table, it seemed to me that their drop-dead sex appeal sucked all of the air from the ranger camp’s dining hall. I fought for a deep breath, started the recorder, and delved right into the interview. The sooner they realized I wasn’t here to steal something sacred from them like their sword or the TV remote, the better off I would be. Provided I could lie that well. The truth was I would have stolen any moment I could in a dark corner. It was my first assignment for Cosmos PQ and I’d felt like a lamb coming into a den of lions when I walked in the door, but now that I’d met them…well that was changing. Jared and Navarre were warriors from the spirit world and Sheriff Sam Sheridan along with Deputy Nick Sinclair were humans from Twilight’s Sheriff’s Department. Before today my closest encounter with the paranormal was hot romance novels, but I had an open mind and always believed where there was smoke there was fire. And boy was there some hot stuff blazing here.

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Elizabeth Hoyt | The Middle Child

So my May book is the third in a four book series set in Georgian England. The series is The Legend of the Four Soldiers and the book is To Beguile a Beast. The other three books are about soldiers coming home from war. But To Beguile a Beast doesn’t have a soldier hero.

Sir Alistair Munroe is a civilian naturalist.

The other three soldier heroes were in the British army when their regiment was decimated by the French and their Indian allies. They volunteered for the army or bought a commission, but in any case, they chose to be there.

Sir Alistair just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And while the other heroines in The Legend of the Four Soldiers series are aristocratic heroines, Helen Fitzwilliam, the heroine of To Beguile a Beast is no aristocrat.

Nor is she a lady.

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Linda Winstead Jones | BRIDE BY COMMAND

First, thanks to Fresh Fiction for inviting me to be here to blog about Bride by Command, which will be officially released tomorrow. It’s always great to get out and “talk” to readers and other writers.

Bride by Command is the final book in “The Emperor’s Brides” trilogy, which has sent Emperor Jahn of Columbyana on a reluctant quest for an empress. There are two potential brides per book, and naturally, by the third book in the series many of the brides are spoken for by other heroes. At one point I joked with a friend, as we walked around the neighborhood and talked plots, that I should title this one Empress by Default. :-) At the time, the working title was Unbreakable, and as you can see I ended up with a title somewhere in between.

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Shayla Black | BOUND AND DETERMINED

I’m thrilled that on Tuesday, March 3, one of my favorite books will re-release in trade paperback: BOUND AND DETERMINED. Let me give you the 411…then a little story to go along with it.

Berkley HEAT
ISBN-10: 0425226905
ISBN-13: 978-0425226902
Genre: Sexy Contemporary Romance
Re-release Date: March 3, 2009

WANTED FOR KIDNAPPING: A bubbly blonde with a penchant for trouble. May be armed (with good intentions) and dangerously seductive…
Kerry Sullivan is running out of time-and patience. With her brother wrongfully accused of embezzling millions, she can’t face one more humiliating hang-up from the man she’s begging for help. Rafael Dawson may be one of the top electronic security experts in the country — and the only man who can prove her brother’s innocence — but his phone manners are appalling. Damn Yankee. Too bad kidnapping the man isn’t an option. Or is it?

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Maxine Sullivan | THE LONG JOURNEY

If anyone had told me in the early 1980s that it would take me over 20 years to be published, I probably wouldn't have kept on writing. Perhaps. Back then the world was much smaller, and living in Australia it was smaller still and very isolated. There was no internet, no romance writer organisations, it took two weeks for a letter to get to a publisher before waiting months for a reply, and it took me weeks to type up a manuscript on a typewriter from longhand. Patience was something you had to have. And that was a good training ground for the next twenty years as I tried hard to get published.

In the early 1990s the fledgling internet began to trickle information through. Luckily I knew a computer guru who set me up with an internal modem with a speed that is laughable now but was sheer heaven back then, and I started to learn that there was a growing network of writers out there. It was fantastic. The world was coming into my home and suddenly Down Under wasn't so far away.

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Diane Whiteside | Once Upon A Time in A Place Far, Far Away

Historical authors always write about someplace that can’t be seen or felt by their reader. For KISSES LIKE A DEVIL (just published in February 2009 by Brava), I always knew Brian, William and Viola Donovan’s second son, would find his true love in turn-of the-century Europe. But I wanted it to happen in a fictional country, not someplace well-known where I’d have to walk the straight and narrow path of rigid locations and dates set down in an almanac. No, I wanted the fun of making up a country’s map and history all on my own, just like I would for a fantasy. Yes!

I decided to call it Eisengau, or “Iron Mountain” in German. Quite suitable for someplace that made topnotch guns and cannons, then sold them to the rest of the world at big time prices.

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Natale Stenzel | Between a Rock and a Heart Place

First of all, thank you, thank you to Fresh Fiction for hosting me here today. I love visiting this site for scoop on all the latest romance novels by my favorite authors, so I'm thrilled to be blogging here on the release day for BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HEART PLACE, the third book in my series of funny paranormal romances.

As you'd guess almost immediately upon reading the back cover blurb for this story, my heroine Daphne Forbes receives a truly unwelcome gift: renegade puca powers. Oh. Well, that explains everything. Or maybe not? A puca is actually a fantastical character derived from Celtic and British mythologies. In some traditions, the puca is a shape-shifting trickster who preys on travelers; half faery and half human, the creature has a distinctly mischievous, even malicious bent. Does my version of the puca accurately reflect all the mythological accounts? Some of them. Others I cheerfully warped and expanded to suit my own needs. The pucas in my stories have three specific powers: mindspeak (mind-to-mind communication), glamour (creating illusion/molding the thoughts of humans), and shape-shifting.


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Kimber Chin | Invisible - A Race Against Time

Excerpt From Invisible:

“No TV. Sleep Hagen,” she advised. She felt like she was talking to a five year old.

“You tired?” Blond eyebrows raised.

Yeah, of listening to you. “If we're to do this, we'll need all the extra hours we can get.” There was no use of her going if they didn't find the deed.


That gave him pause. “We have fourteen business days, Maeve.”

“Eighteen days in total.” He didn't understand. “And we'll need every single hour in those eighteen days.”

“Every single hour? You think it's going to be that tough?” His thick thigh rested against hers.

Maeve couldn't move any further away. “Yeah.” Tough wasn't the word for it. Birger would have them running.

“You'll be there for the entire time?”

Maeve didn't commit to anything halfway. It was all or nothing. “Yeah.”

“You don't talk much, do you, Maeve?” And he talked way too much. What was his point?

“Sleep.”


*******
Whew, makes me tired simply reading about Maeve and Hagen's adventures!

In my latest contemporary romance, Invisible, Hagen,has fourteen business days to find the deed to his Great-Uncle's house. If he doesn't succeed, he loses the estate to his devious cousin. Fourteen business days, almost three weeks, to find a piece of paper hidden somewhere in the world. It is a race against time.

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Carly Phillips | Romance

Today is my favorite day of the year. Forget the hype. Forget the sensationalism. Forget the commercialism and the chocolate, the roses and gifts. Valentine’s Day is special to me because it symbolizes what I write about all year. LOVE.

Do you want to know the best thing about LOVE? It’s given freely. It doesn’t cost a penny.


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Lauren Willig | Driving by Misdirection, or Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

Most things in my life happen when I’m trying to do something else. I don’t even mean the big things, like planning to write a dissertation and coming out with a series of romance novels instead (ought I to get an RD for that? I like the sound of Romanciae Doctor), or the fact that if I meant to go right, I usually walk left (I find all sorts of new and interesting places that way). This happens to me in my writing, too. What I wind up writing is seldom exactly what I intended it to be.

Take my first book for example, the lengthily titled Secret History of the Pink Carnation. I very firmly told my agent that what I had produced was a “traditional Regency romance”. My agent is a very kind, patient sort of person. Instead of making snorting noises, he said, very gently, “Are you sure?” I was quite sure. “Um…” he said, flipping through the mental filofax for Tactful Ways to Deal With Deluded Authors. “Are you really sure?” That’s how I found out that what I’d really written was Napoleonic-era historical fiction/ romantic suspense/ mystery/ chick lit. No can quite agree on what it is, but it sure ain’t a traditional Regency. In a word, ooops.

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