July 20, 2006

July 15-16 was the North Atlantic Blues Festival right here on the coast of Maine. It's an annual event that we always attend. You couldn't ask for a better setting—right on the town landing with sailboats and fishing boats behind the stage and two lighthouses in the distance. My dh is a major blues fan, and I've developed more of a taste for the blues as we've seen more and more live performances here. The weather suited the music—hot and sultry, but most of the crowd of 8000 stayed until the end both days.

The Saturday theme was Tribute to New Orleans, and a chunk of the proceeds will go to help New Orleans musicians who lost their homes and instruments. That day included a dynamite line-up of Louisiana performers.

Marva Wright could've belted out her songs without a mike. She brought a tear to my eye when she told of having to evacuate the city and learned from her son later that her house had been washed away. Still she's determined to return. Kenny Neal is the oldest of ten musical children, and two brothers play in his band. Great guitar and harmonica.

The headliner was Marcia Ball, whose song "Let Me Play with your Poodle," on the CD of the same name always makes me smile and sing along. That lady plays a mean boogie-woogie piano and sings the way we all wish we could.

And if you don't know Tab Benoit and his music, honey, you haven't lived. That sexy Cajun could charm the gators out of the swamp with his smile and by just talking to them with that velvet voice. And when he sings, whoa.  Can you tell I'm a fan? He talked to the appreciative and sympathetic crowd a bit about the problems still facing New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf coast. About the disgrace that searchers are still finding dead bodies in their homes. About the slow progress in repairing the city and infrastructure. It's already hurricane season and there's a long way to go. He urged people to go to New Orleans on vacation, to support the city and its people by spending your money there instead of sending it to politicians who might waste it or worse. The destruction of this historic city is a national disgrace that must be rectified and never duplicated. Let's do what we can.

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July 11, 2006

In Deadly Memories, the hunt for stolen uranium and their personal searches take my characters to Italy, that ancient land of extravagant food, wine and people.  As you can tell from the title, Deadly Memories, my characters' memories were not pleasant.  My memories of a trip to Italy years ago are much more pleasant.  Those and my research helped me indulge myself with Italian culture and lore.  I steeped myself in the language and history, architecture and scenery as I created villas and villages.  Of course, I had to sample the wine and recipes that accompanied my characters' journey from Venice to Tuscany.  Here is one of the recipes I found as delicious as I ate--um, worked my way through the story.

Pollo Al Mattone, or Tuscan Pressed Chicken

1 small chicken, split down backbone; or 4 deboned chicken breasts
juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
1/3 cup olive oil, plus more for basting
salt and pepper to taste
1 lemon, sliced for garnish

Press the chicken to form a uniform thickness, as flat as you can.  Marinate in lemon juice for 30 minutes, turning after 15 minutes.  Remove the chicken and discard the juice.  Rub the chicken on both sides with olive oil.  Sprinkle with salt, chopped sage, and lots of freshly ground black pepper.  Heat olive oil in an iron skillet over medium heat.  When it is hot, add the chicken and place a weighted lid on top of the chicken.  Cook for approximately 55 minutes, turning 3 or 4 times and basting with pan juices.  Cut the cooked chicken into pieces and serve immediately.  If using deboned chicken breasts, cut cooking time in half.  Garnish with lemon slices and serve hot.

Buon appetito!

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June 28, 2006

BIG NEWS! 

I'm absolutely thrilled! DEADLY MEMORIES has received a Top Pick ranking and 4 ½ stars from Romantic Times Book Club Magazine.   Check out that review and others on the Newest Release page.

Meanwhile I'm working on a new proposal between trying to save my flowers from the squirrels and my vegetable garden from the insects. We've had soooo much rain that the poor things just huddle against the ground. The plants, not the squirrels.

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June 16, 2006

Now that you've checked out my newly designed website, I want to brag on it a little. My host NovelTalk designed the whole thing, with my input, of course. Laura and Karen are the best! I wanted a danger and suspense feel, but with romance part of the equation. And I think we achieved that. Hope everyone likes it.

And it's only a month and a half until my next release. DEADLY MEMORIES will be on the shelves on August 1. The book is the last in my series about the men and women of the Anti-Terrorism Security Agency. If you read BREAKING ALL THE RULES, you met Jack Thorne there as a secondary character. At the end of that book, he flew off to Italy in search of the missing weapons-grade uranium. In DEADLY MEMORIES, we learn the reason for his hurry—a vendetta against an old enemy. Jack is a tortured hero, a hard man in need of softening, and he finds it, whether he wants to or not, with the heroine, Sophie. On the cover, which is gorgeous, you see the couple in a romantic pose and below a scene from Venice, their starting point in their run across Italy. Before you ask, no, I didn't make a trip to Italy to research the book. I've been there, so I relied on memory and normal research, but now I want to go again. LOL.

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June 3, 2006

Next weekend I'll be in Concord, New Hampshire, to present a workshop for the NH romance writers group on emotion in romance.  Usually I prepare workshops on topics that I need to work on, and this is no exception. When I originally created "Emotion on Every Page," I was in a real writing slump. Oh, I was writing away, but not selling. One of the mail reasons for not selling was that I was concentrating on my story plots to the exclusion of the emotion. And emotion is one big reason people read romance. So I studied other authors' books and consulted other authors as well as the writing texts.  And not only did my efforts yield three more books sales in short order, but the work I did resulted in that workshop. One great thing about romance authors is that we share our helpful writing information with each other. So if anyone is in Concord next Saturday, drop in at the Holiday Inn about one o'clock because I'll be sharing the wealth.

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I've been slow to come back with more news because I've been working hard on the proposal for the book set in the Mayan jungles. I mailed that to my editor yesterday, so now it's hard to type with my fingers crossed.

Normally I don't get story ideas while I'm working out at my gym. Don't think I haven't tried, but nothing has materialized. Yesterday the man on the next treadmill, Tom, suggested I write a murder mystery set in a gym. "Just look at all these machines," he said. "So many of them could be deadly."

Tom knows that I'm a writer, but what prompted this was my attire. I was wearing the T-shirt I purchased from the Dallas Area Romance Writers with the logo: "Warning--what you do may appear in my next book." 

"Well," I replied to Tom, "I have thought of ways a few of the weight machines could be murder weapons. What did you have in mind?"

Tom thought the gym setting would provide a wealth of suspects. "Just think. Here are all these people you know only at the gym, in a very superficial way. You don't really know them. "

He was right. Look at how many people you "know" in your daily comings and goings. At the gym, in the supermarket, at the corner store, on the bus or subway (for those of you in cities). Any one of them could be someone other than who they portray themselves as. Any one could be a murderer, as Tom was suggesting.

Tom went on to say, "I wouldn't mind being one of the suspects in the book."

"Oh," I said, all innocence, "I had you in mind for the victim."

I wish I'd had a camera to take his picture. Priceless.

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More of Mexico.

I hope you survived April Fool's Day without too many untied shoelace jokes.

Here we are standing at the foot of El Castillo, the largest pyramid-temple at Chichen Itza. Tourist aren't allowed to climb it any more because too many people have been injured coming back down. The steps have been worn too smooth by so many eager feet, I suppose. If you saw the presidents of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico on TV recently climbing the steps, you can be sure they went up only a few steps. And here I am beneath one of the elaborate carvings at another temple. When these were new, the features were painted with bright colors. I wish I could go back in time to see all this as a vibrant city full of people and color.

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March 28, 2006

Weekend disasters and small miracle.

Just when you think everything's on an even keel, something happens to prove you wrong. We went away for the weekend to see our nephew ski in the U.S. Alpine Championships at Sugarloaf here in Maine. Since we'd left the Sarah dog in a kennel recently when we went to Mexico, we decided to take her along even though she's a pain in the car. She's like a kid, all excited to go, but after five minutes, asking "Are we there yet?" Except since she's a dog and not a kid, she whines and pants and generally is in your face. Nevertheless, we managed the 3 + hour drive. We stayed in a rented chalet with the racer's mom, my dh's sister.  Sarah was freaked out and sad staying in a strange place. She was afraid to climb the spiral staircase to the living-kitchen area, and moped on her bed when we were upstairs. I should've warned the SIL, but didn't think Sarah would be so dumb. I was wrong. Yesterday afternoon, my SIL arrived at the chalet before we did. When she opened the door, Sarah bolted and raced down the road and disappeared into the maze of roads on the mountainside before my SIL could blink. We searched and called until dark. No Sarah. We imagined all sorts of terrible outcomes--coyotes, frozen in the woods, hit by a car... No one got much sleep. I couldn't imagine she'd find her way back in this strange location, but that's what happened. The next morning, there she was at the door, wet and exhausted and hungry, but basically okay. So she was dumb to run away, but smart and clever to find her way back. Instinct? Nose? Who knows?

There's no way to know where she went or spent the night, but I'm thankful to have her back. She slept the whole way home in the car, as peaceful as you please. But that's a drastic  way to have a quiet canine traveling companion.

Oh, and the ski races? Well, they didn't go as well as we'd hoped either. The nephew place in the top ten in the two races before we arrived. But those two days, he didn't finish. Bummer, but as he says, there's always another race.  And there was. The very next day, he placed 5th! So he did well in three of the five races.  We're very proud of him for the comeback.

But there's not going to be another trip for the Sarah dog. We've promised her she can stay home or in the kennel from now on. Sarah's your basic Maine black dog, part this and that. Long hair, floppy ears, sort of retrieverish although her mother was a border collie. Here she is looking innocent and perfectly normal. Hah!:

 

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March 10, 2006

Hola, readers and friends. I have just returned from the most fabulous research trip--to the Riviera Maya on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. I'm working on a book involving the return of a Mayan god figure with a curse to its temple deep in the jungle of Central America. My heroine wants to end the curse and she's hired a hunky guide/security expert to help her.

I cannot tell you how wonderful this trip was. My husband and I found the Mexican people of the Yucatan and especially the Mayans so and warm and welcoming whether you spoke only travelers' Spanish or none at all. Amazingly, the local people who deal with tourists often seemed to speak several languages--their native Mayan and Spanish and English or French, for example.

Yes, the beach was great, but the highlights for me were elsewhere. First were the visits to the ancient Mayan ruined cities, especially the ones that are still nearly swallowed by the jungle.  Second was the visit to a Mayan village, where the descendants of those city-building Mayans still live in dirt-floor huts with thatched roofs. They eke out their living in the ancient ways, by cooking corn tortillas on a stone over a wood fire and by hunting and subsistance farming. Here are a couple of pictures to illustrate. The first shows the ruins at Coba. The second is shows three of the Mayan village huts belonging to extended members of the same family. On the other side were their entrances surrounded by pots of flowers and usually some pets and chickens. I'll show some more next message.

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February 18, 2006

Another signing of BREAKING ALL THE RULES in Brunswick, Maine. Some writer friends stopped by, a teacher I hadn't seen in years, and other friends who'd missed last week's signing. It was terrific!

Here are two of the pictures.

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February 11, 2006

I had my first signing today of BREAKING ALL THE RULES, at a new bookstore nearby. Mine was their first book signing. Some friends came and some new people. The table looked very festive. Check out the Valentine candy and the lighted hearts.

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January 26, 2006

I've received the author copies of my new release BREAKING ALL THE RULES, and they are gorgeous, even more so than the images of the cover I had before.  When the manager of my local bank suggested that I set up a display to coordinate with Valentine's Day, I leaped at the chance for free promotion. You bet!  To improve on the original idea, I suggested a fundraiser to benefit the local Humane Society shelter. Voila--I created a basket of books and Valentiney goodies to raffle off. In it are three of my books, chocolate (of course!!!), a teddy bear, candles with hearts, bath salts, and lots more. Here's a picture of the finished product in its place of honor at the Camden National Bank. You can also see on the right a flyer about my signings at two local bookstores in February.

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January 3, 2006

As part of my wish for a Happy New Year for everyone, I want to share a recipe for a dish served in my upcoming release, BREAKING ALL THE RULES  (IM, February). The book has received praise in all the reviews I’ve received so far, so I’m eager to share something from it. Here’s the recipe for the Lemon Chicken that Janna prepares on the yacht, an easy and delicious Mediterranean one-dish meal.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In small bowl, combine lemon zest, juice and oil. Press garlic into liquid. Add spices, mix and set aside. (If you wish more marinade, add bottled lemon-garlic marinade to the mixture.) Cut each potato lengthwise into wedges; place in greased 9X13 baking pan. Add bell pepper, onion, zucchini, and mushrooms. Pour on half the lemon-juice mixture and toss to coat. Bake 40 minutes or until potatoes are nearly done. Stir well. Place chicken breasts on top of vegetables and brush with rest of lemon-juice mixture. Bake about 30 minutes more or until chicken is no longer pink in center.

Serves 6.

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December 23, 2005

I’ve received my author copies of BREAKING ALL THE RULES. They are so perfect. Cool and sexy cover, enticing back cover copy. Those of you who have won the book as a prize will be receiving your copy soon after Christmas. I’m afraid to put them in the mail now with the last-minute rush. The reviewer on Coffee Time Romance called the book “a keeper.”

I don’t have a new contest at the moment, but Romance Junkies does. You can win a copy of BREAKING ALL THE RULES and some special gifts at Romance Junkies this holiday season. They’ve created a gorgeous newsletter chock full of all sorts of prizes donated by publishers and authors, including moi!

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December 16, 2005

December is a month for celebration and for hopes for peace on earth. As I look around and follow the news, I don’t see much peace. It’s tempting to think an individual can do nothing to alleviate the suffering or to help the starving in far-off parts of the world.  Many of us help others directly in our communities, and that’s as it should be. But I’d like to make this plea for a wider reach in giving.

A few years ago, instead of giving family members two and three gifts they don’t need and won’t use, my husband and I opted to give one wrapped present to the person along with donation in his or her name to Heifer International. Never heard of it? Neither had I at first, but I've come to believe it's one of the most worthwhile charities that exist.. Heifer International is a nonprofit that works to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth by providing food-and-income-producing animals and training impoverished families to become more self-reliant. Since 1944, Heifer has helped millions of people in more than 125 countries with gifts of cows, sheep, water buffalos, chickens, rabbits, pigs, llamas, bees, and trees. Any donation is welcome, $10 or $1000--it all goes into the pot to send animals all over the world. If you're giving in someone's name, you can request gift cards from Heifer.

If you are interested in participating, check out their Web site at www.heifer.org.

On that note, let me wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukah, a Festive Kwanza, and a Happy New Year!

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November 28, 2005

Now that the Thanksgiving bird has been stuffed (me!) and I’ve helped put the local retailers in the black, I’m back to counting Weight Watcher points in hopes of slimming down by spring. I know, I know--wrong time of year to do that, with more holidays coming up, but it’s a constant battle against that villain, my metabolism. Which brings me to my topic for the day, villains. Awkward segue, I know, but my brain is clogged with the chemical in turkey (triptophan?) that makes you drowsy.

As I work to develop the villain in my current project, it occurs to me that villains are as complex if not more so than heroes and heroines. Or they should be, to make the conflict strong and intriguing for the reader. In romantic suspense, villains are individual humans, rather than a force of nature or society in general. Rather than insane or demented, the villain ought to be intelligent and strong, a worthy opponent for the hero/heroine. Even a serial killer villain, though a sociopath in spades, should challenge the hero/heroine with game playing or taunting or some sort of deviousness. Most of the time, mine are powerful, and they threaten more than just the protagonists. The villain giving me fits at the moment is fit and handsome, with one of those cleft chins à la Michael Douglas that we women love. He’s rich, powerful and charismatic. He could be a story hero if not for a quirky little character flaw. He wants power--at any cost--murder, revolution, anything.  My challenge is to show him as a complex character rather than one-dimensional.

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November 5, 2005

I’m later than I wanted to be writing this, but family business took precedence. I’ve just returned from a memorial service for my father-in-law. He died at age 91 after a productive life, so the service was truly a celebration of his life, as was the service for my mother-in-law three years ago. So much of their experiences were available to the family, especially to the grandsons, because my mother-in-law had kept a diary when she was young. A few years before her memory began to fail her, she collected the various entries plus some stories from her husband into a memoir she typed on a manual Remington. She then shipped the manuscript, with many handwritten additions in the margins, to the writer in the family (moi) to edit.

More than editing, I had the memoir printed up in a booklet, with copies for each member of the family. Without that memoir, we wouldn’t know about the six months of 1935 she spent on a working ranch in Nevada and how she raced a pony at a rodeo and learned to roast a chicken by beginning with the live bird. We wouldn’t know details of her two years in Australia with the Red Cross in WWII either, or the story of how she met her husband after the war. We wouldn’t know about my father-in-law’s two years with the Merchant Marine and the first motorcycle he bought, in Africa. We wouldn’t have details about his work with Materiel Command training airplane mechanics in various theaters of WWII and the Bronze Star awarded him by President Harry Truman.

I regret that I don’t have such tales of my own parents, only vague memories of things they told me as I was growing up. I’m citing all this, not just because I feel blessed to have known these wonderful people, but to urge the younger relatives not to lose those stories. Record those memories and vignettes on tape or on paper for the family.

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October 3, 2005

While most of us in the Northeast are enjoying the fall foliage and cool, crisp days, I am battling Mother Nature. Or squirrel nature, to tell the truth. I have pots of geraniums on my deck and by the front door as well as other annuals in beds around the house. My house overlooks a river, but on both sides are dense woods populated by many birds and squirrels. Of the three bird feeders I keep filled, only one is impregnable by the furry beasts. They compete with the chickadees, nuthatches and house finches for seeds in the other two. Squirrels are cute, I give you that, and the larger, gray ones at least have manners. They eat the seeds, but leave my flowers alone. The little red squirrels aren’t content with sunflower seeds. In August, they took to eating the geranium flowers.  From my desk, where I’m working on a new proposal for my editor, I could look out the window and see a bold red squirrel chomp down on a flower and scurry off with red blossoms sticking out of its mouth. Larry at the garden center advised me to sprinkle cayenne pepper on the flowers. No luck. Then instead of eating the flowers, the little buggers bit the flowers off and spit them out. They don’t give up. Next Larry suggested lead poisoning, the rapid kind. I wasn’t prepared to shoot every red squirrel in the woods, so that option is out. After I wasted more cayenne pepper and ended up with bare stems on all the plants, I gave up. I switched to yellow and burgundy fall mums and bright orange pumpkins. Now the little monsters have started on the pumpkins. I can’t win.

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September 2005

Some friends and acquaintances have said that it must be nice writing fiction because I don’t have to do the research nonfiction requires. They have no idea.
For example, the setting requires research, maybe a road trip. I have to acquaint myself with the geography, the scenery and the architecture--sometimes the colloquialisms and accent. Even when I choose a familiar setting, such as Maine, where I live, I have questions during the process of writing the book. Recently, I’ve moved my stories onto a larger stage. In Code Name: Fiancee, the entire story takes place in and around our nation’s capital. I used to live in the Maryland suburbs there and even taught in Chevy Chase, where the hero’s house is. I made up the house and its street, but I needed maps, Web sites and guide books for driving routes, street names, and restaurants. In my next release, Breaking All the Rules, the hero and heroine go from Washington to New York City to a private Caribbean island. I had a lot of fun with creating the proper mood and details to make those places come alive.

I keep folders for the various topics needed for a given book, not just for the settings, either. For Code Name: Fiancée, I researched antique dealing, embassy personnel, Iraqi artifacts, rare diamonds, and high fashion. Breaking All the Rules required folders on New York City, arms dealing, stolen uranium, luxury yachts, Caribbean plants and geology, and high-tech surveillance devices.

Research is necessary for authenticity, but can be a trap. A writer must be careful not to make the book a dump for all she's learned. The story is the characters and the plot, not the research. But you'd be amazed at the trivia I've accumulated!

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