Hi Erica! How’s release week treating you? 

Fabulously! I may be averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night, but the past couple weeks have been amazing. On Sunday, I had my official launch party: a signing at a local independent bookstore followed by an after party at a friend of mine’s café. Another friend of mine baked lip-shaped cookies as “kiss” favors. (Yet another friend of mine brought a fabulous key lime dessert. Key lime may have nothing whatsoever to do with my book, but it was delicious!!)

 Do you realize that your description of release week primarily details the food?

 Er, yes. Pretty much all my stories have to do with food. I spent the past year in Europe, and I’m pretty sure 99% of my Twitter and Facebook updates were about the incredible things I was eating and drinking. (Or not eating. Like the time someone brought over a frozen fish as a party favor, unwrapped it, and set it directly on the coffee table. I was the only one who seemed to find that strange.)

 Are there many strange goings-on in Too Wicked To Kiss?

 Each of the …

By Tami Brothers 

Secrets

I’ve been told by those who read my blog posts or who happen by my Web site that it LOOKS like I’m making great progress.  But looks can be deceiving. 

The reality is that I haven’t written anything substantial in two years.  Two! Freaking! Years!

Yes, there is the chapter I contributed to Aspen Expose’ (and the chapter I just turned in for the sequel), my short story for the October Treasure Hunt, and finally the articles I’ve written for GRW’s Galley and RWA’s PROspects publications.  Aside from that?  Nothing.  Zip.  Nada.  

Lies

Recently one of my GRW chapter mates asked why I hadn’t made it to publication yet.  I mumbled something about a couple of WIPs I was working on and about getting around to submitting something, then immediately felt guilty because I wasn’t being truthful.  What I should have said was I that was mourning the death of my muse.    

Murder

You see, two years ago I made a commitment to go back to college and quickly discovered nothing can kill a muse …

My daughter hates writing. The poor child practically breaks out in hives at the thought of writing anything more detailed than a grocery list.  This is something I can’t begin to comprehend. To me, writing is wonderful, euphoric, cathartic. To her, it’s something akin to having your fingernails pulled out with needlenose pliers and obviously, something we just can’t agree on.

This semester in college, she’s taking a public speaking class and must write her own speeches. I agonize for her, knowing how she despises the whole ordeal. It’s not just the writing, it’s getting up in front of a room full of people to give a convincing speech on the chosen topic.

The writing, dear old mom can help her with, the speaking part, I cannot.

Ever since I can remember, getting up in front of a staring, expectant, crowd of people has turned my brain as well as my legs into aspic. I have vivid memories of my first piano recital at age nine, where I couldn’t get past the opening strains of the Mozart piece I’d been practicing for months. I left the stage in shame.

In high school, I agreed to perform a duet with one of my fellow choir …

Something About You

by Julie James

Berkley Sensation

ISBN-10: 0425233383

As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Cameron Lynde has seen and heard a lot of crazy things. However, nothing prepared her for what she overhears while staying overnight in a local hotel waiting for her hardwood floors to dry. Thirty thousand hotel rooms in the city of Chicago, and Cameron Lynde managed to find one next door to a couple having a sex marathon. But that’s not all she hears; afterwards, she inadvertently hears a murder. As the only person who witnessed anything, Cameron is then questioned by CPD and the FBI, which is headed up by none other than Special Agent Jack Pallas, the man who publicly embarrassed her three years before.

Three years ago, Cameron and Jack were involved in a case concerning a dirty Chicago thug in which Jack was also the main witness after spending two years undercover. When Cameron suddenly dropped the case due to “lack of evidence” (but actually per the instructions of her boss), Jack went ballistic and made some rather choice remarks about her on national television. His actions caused him to be transferred to Nebraska. He’s finally …

Marriage:

For Business or Pleasure

by Nicola Marsh

Harlequin Presents

ISBN-13:978-0-373-12898-3

Brittney Lloyd left Australia to escape her poor relationship with her father, but she left behind the love of her life Nick Mancini. She asked him to go with her to London but he refused. Now Brittney is back, and needs Nick’s help.

Having spent the past ten years working herself up in the ranks of a top advertising company, the job promotion Brittney desires hinges on Nick agreeing to let her use his old home place for an ad campaign. She is surprised to find that Nick is now a wealthy hotel owner. He will agree to her using his home place if she will agree to marry him. He needs the respectability that having her for a wife can give him. She agrees, but only after visiting her estranged father and finding out that it had been his money, not an inheritance from her mother, that Brittney had lived on when she first went to London.  She wants no obligation to her father. With the job promotion, she can repay the money. 

The feelings of the past flair back to life between Nick and …

By Susan May

If this was Writers’ Anonymous I would have to stand up and say, “I’m Susan May, a plotter.” I couldn’t always say that. I haven’t always plotted my stories, but I should’ve known I was a plotter long before I became one. My personality screamed that I was a plotter.

              I like things in their place. When I was in college my roommate asked to borrow my scissors. I said, “Sure, middle drawer of my desk, on the right side, half way back.” Her look of disbelief was almost comical. “How do you do that?” she asked.

Organized would be what I am. Sometimes too much so. I keep a calendar. I make a list for everything. I show up for appointments on the days they are schedule. I make travel arrangements for my family. The list goes on and on.

So with this knowledge, how did I not know that I was a plotter? I think it was because I was so anxious to write the book I didn’t want to stop long enough to plot. But if I had stopped to think about it and who I am, I know I would’ve been happier plotting from the beginning of …

By Tamara DeStefano

I’m assuming Albert Einstein isn’t the first person you picture when the subject of romance writing is brought up.

Don’t get me wrong, the wild haired, sockless physicist was awfully cute, but let’s be honest, he was no Fabio.

However, watching a documentary on the brilliant man got me thinking. The ups and downs punctuating his monumental career, mirrors in many ways the successes and failures of the struggling romance author.

Did you know that as a young man in 1904, Einstein thought about leaving the science world and selling insurance? He nearly threw in the towel because the article he had written on special relativity wasn’t immediately accepted. No one understood the darn thing, they couldn’t grasp the concept so it was in a sense, rejected.

As romance authors many of us have thought of quitting too. Especially after mailing our life’s blood out in a Tyvec envelope, waiting months or even years for a reply and praying in that time that our words will be understood. We cross our fingers that the editor or agent who requested our novel will embrace the plot, root for the characters and grasp …