Carla and friend Nancy Martin

Crazier-than-normal week here, and my friend Nancy Martin's stepping in for me today. Please welcome her to RWQ. Nancy and I met when our daughters were in pigtails and we were both having a grand time writing category romances. Nancy's fast-paced style and quirky characters earned her a huge number of fans and, for me, are an indelible part of her "voice" as a writer. I'm a sucker for a strong voice. I've followed many writers across genres and sub-genres just because of their voice.

Thanks, Nancy!

Carla

Girls Gone Wild

After writing nearly forty romance novels, I slung my writer’s bag of tricks over my shoulder and tried writing a book in the genre I grew up avidly reading—a murder mystery

I mixed my mayhem with a dash of romance as I wrote the first Blackbird Sisters Mystery series, HOW TO MURDER A MILLIONAIRE. I took a chance, because I thought most mystery readers liked just the facts, Ma’am, no lovey-dovey stuff. Who knew my mysteries would be greeted with such enthusiasm? The quirky characters I loved writing in romance novels made an easy trip across the aisle in the bookstore, and mystery readers declared I’d created something totally new with the “romantic mystery love interest,” which is a hoot. Any romance reader will recognize the “love interest” in my Blackbird Sisters mysteries in a heartbeat. But to the average mystery reader, the alpha male, the man who breaks the rules, the criminal with the heart of molten gold—he’s a totally new character.

When Michael Abruzzo, son of a New Jersey mobster, meets my amateur sleuth and

Philadelphia society columnist Nora Blackbird, it’s love at first sight. He’s attracted by her gentle and genteel ways—not to mention the broken heart that only he can see. And she’s the proverbial moth drawn to his hot flame. Can he give up his mob ties and go straight? Can she solve murders on the Main Line using his insider knowledge of criminal ways . . . without getting him arrested? In seven books, the path of their true love runs rocky, but for me—a writer who had penned nearly forty romance novels--the luxury of exploring the same complex romantic relationship for many years was a great pleasure.

But recently I started thinking mystery readers were ready for another “new” character with roots in the romance genre--the trickster heroine. I’ve always liked the hot-tempered woman who hides her softer side behind snappy dialogue, plenty of action and chutzpah. So I spun Michael Abruzzo’s wild child little sister Roxy into a series of her own. I figure it’s time a female amateur sleuth gets as much action—in bed as well as on the mean streets--as her male counterpart.

OUR LADY OF IMMACULATE DECEPTION hit bookstores last week, and many cozy mystery fans immediately got the vapors. Roxy is too tough! Too sexy! She’s actually—gasp!—corrupt!

Mystery readers love their male tough guys, but if a female detective so much as forgets to feed her cat, they complain about her character.

In the first chapter of OUR LADY OF IMMACULATE DECEPTION (available for you to re

ad here: www.nancymartinmysteries.com ) Roxy steals a priceless statue. (After all, what red-blooded girl can resist a handsome naked man?) But the statue’s disappearance triggers the murder of a philandering tycoon and an international art scandal, too. Roxy’s caught in a big mess of her own making. And there are other difficulties to cope with: Her teenager is p

robably smarter than she is. The father of her child has problems that may make him an impos

sible life partner. And

Roxy also has what I’ll delicately call sexual issues. Like a serial killer, she even keeps mementos from her conquests. Plus she doesn’t quite know the difference between right and wrong.

I think I came up with a dynamic character who’s every bit as unrestrained as the male detectives who roam the mean streets. She’s free to act in ways that make her exciting to read about. But she’s not for the faint of heart—readers who only want to read about nice girls.

I’m thinking romance readers will understand Roxy. Do you remember the most exciting heroines you’ve ever read? And how many of them are faint of heart?

Nancy Martin is the author of nearly 50 popular fiction novels including the award-winning Blackbird Sisters Mystery Series. She serves on the board of Sisters in Crime and teaches writing workshops around the country. In 2009, she was awarded the Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award for mystery writing.

Bless you every one:)

Good morning, my flowers:

On Sale Now!

This has been a fabulous week and an icky week sometimes. We won't discuss the icky which only has to do with my issues over sleep. Anyone else have a lot of trouble sleeping? Even as I write that I know it's a dumb question because it's such a common problem.

The good stuff: thanks to you and my readers everywhere, OUT OF BODY is on the New York Times List. It's always such a thrill.

When I got the call on Wednesday I was staring at a blank computer screen willing some words to magically appear in front of me—no luck. Then, "brrrring" and I heard that lovely voice tell me about OUT OF BODY and I felt so cheerful. In fact I know I did some running around and whooping—very unladylike but feels so good.

On Sale Mar 30

Tomorrow evening the questions for my new book club will be posted on Facebook. There will be some starter questions but most of all I'm hoping some of you will have a question or two. If you can, please go to www.facebook.com/stellacameron and click on "discussions" in the top bar.

Have a wonderful week,

Stella

This is an off-the-wall question, but I'm looking for suggestions—for names of businesses. Crazy ones. Names that absolutely don't fit the kind of business. Any ideas?

This 'n that...

Hello my friends, and...whew! Take a deep breath, Kate...yep. It's been ONE OF THOSE weeks...or two... and I should have published my blog yesterday but our Internet went down, so here I am, as the saying goes--a day late and a dollar short!

But it's been a wild few days, and it made me think of something one of my neighbors said one time, of how cool it must be to have a job where you get to work in your jammies "when the muse hits." Yeah...right. We all just hang around in our jammies all day, waiting for inspiration, right?

Uh, huh....

My nutty few days began with the release of my very first mass market book, DemonFire, on February 23, which was very exciting. I was driving to town to puppysit the granddog and visit a couple of bookstores to sign stock when I managed to hydroplane in my little pickup truck while going over the mountain in a rainstorm. I've never done this before--hope never to do it again. I'm a control freak and I dislike immensely being out of control. When your vehicle is sliding out of control with a 100 foot drop on one side, oncoming traffic ahead and a mountain on the other, you pray for the mountain. My prayers were answered and I slammed into the hillside. I'm fine, the truck is not, but it was a good lesson that, even driving slow in a rainstorm doesn't mean you're going to be safe. Of course, since the little Nissan pickup is/was our only car, my husband had to fetch me in the motorhome (thank goodness we have it--the only other alternative would have been his motorcycle!) but we picked up a rental and, other than tweaks and bruises, I'm fine. Didn't make it to the bookstores, though.

But, plenty of other readers did, and DemonFire hit the Nielsen BookScan list this week--my first list EVER of ANY significance, so that sort of balanced out the wreck...hey, in this business, we take what we can get!

And during all this time I've been working on Wolf Tales 11, which was due on February 15 and didn't quite make it on time. Luckily my editor, who's had me doing a lot of other stuff not on my schedule in order to publicize DemonFire, has been really cool about the missed deadline, and finally, this morning around two a.m. I finished my final read through on the book and it's now all ready to print and send. I also got the page proofs for Wolf Tales 10 finished, and this is all in good time as I've got copy edits for HellFire, the next in the DemonSlayers series, coming in by FedEx. (yep--jammies/muse/hanging out...)

The coolest thing, though? Remember that contest I mentioned, about asking readers to take photos for my "DemonFire sightings?" I've gotten some of the neatest pictures, and they're posted on my Facebook page! I'm still getting pictures in, and I'll be arbitrarily (names in a basket) choosing a winner in a couple of weeks for an advance readers copy of HellFire, the next book in the series. Just send your pictures to me at kate@katedouglas.com, and tell me where they were taken--store/city/state. Cell phone images are fine--I'm really getting a kick out of this, since my Wolf Tales aren't in grocery stores and Walmart and places like that. It's fun to see the various displays in different venues.

So that's how my last week or so has gone. It's an exhausting, sometimes frustrating, but oh, so gratifying business, this "author shtick," and on occasion, life gets in the way, but I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing. (and okay...yes, I do work in my jammies...)

So how was your week? Any highs or lows you want to share? I'm listening!

Susie's not gonna be foe no moe

Once Upon a Time, when I was a wee sprout about to turn five, I was asked how old I'd be on my birthday. Family history has it that I looked the questioner in the eye and said, "Well, I ain't gonna be foe no moe." So of course my fam has beat that to death over the years by bringing it up anytime I was about to turn 24, 34, 44, 54. I'm pretty sure I'll go to my grave with that bit of family lore attached to me. I can hear them now: Hmmm, guess she really isn't gonna be ninety-foe no moe.

<-- born a blonde

I imagine every family probably has sayings that make no sense to anyone else, but tickle those involved. Or perhaps in your family, as in mine, they just won't let it die no matter how pretty you beg.


I don't remember exactly how old I was the year I got a cunning pair of blue flip flops with tinsel-shiny straps. I do remember we were calling them zorries that summer, that I loved mine to pieces, and had probably only had them a week the day we went over to Pleasant Harbor in my dad's old Hollywood, a 17 foot wooden boat we used to water ski behind. My cousin Colleen and I were messing around on a long, narrow dock 10 or so feet above the water when I managed to knock off one of the sandals. It fell into the water below and I flipped out in the way only pubescent girls can do. My brother Ron, who's 3 years older than I, said he'd get it for me--probably just to shut me up. He was wading from the shore out to where it floated fifteen feet away, when we saw that he was headed for an abrupt and very steep drop off. Being a know-it-all-teenage boy, however, he blew us off when we warned him-- only to immediately take the step that made him sink like a stone. So the saying he got stuck with is: "Hah! Wanna make a bet--glub, glub, glub."

Before my sweet baby boy had words, whenever we'd ask him where something was he'd say, "Eee ee ee!" with the same inflection you'd give "Here it is!" To this day the soul mate and I will still occasionally respond that way when we find something we've been searching for.

So I get it. It wasn't that my family lived to annoy me by refusing to let go of my childish "Ain't gonna be foe no moe"--although I don't doubt in my brothers' minds that was a bonus. It's more that such family sayings anchor moments in our lives, moments that bring with them flashes as clear as the days the sayings came into being. I can still see Ron's face just before he stepped off the drop off, can still feel the sun on my shoulders and picture those flip flops as clearly as the day I got them. I can still see my baby's face, all lit up with the pleasure of telling us where the item we asked about was located, if only in babyeze.

So these are a few of my family sayings. What are the ones that have become part of your family lore?

Jayne Gets a Bit Frantic

This is going to be one very short blog, folks. The first volume in my Dreamlight Trilogy, FIRED UP came out in January. The second volume, BURNING LAMP, will be out in April. Meanwhile, the paperback rollover of THE PERFECT POISON goes on sale at the end of March. This has been one busy winter and, yes, I'm feeling frazzled.

Now just to top it off, I find myself on deadline with a book due on Tuesday. Yikes! Tuesday. I simply cannot think rationally about anything except sorting out my very tangled plot. I hope you will understand.

I rarely let myself get up against a deadline like this but here I am. Serious crunch time. Wish me luck.

Time to prioritize. Time to stay focused.

What do you do when you find yourself up against a wall like this?

Sincerely,

Jayne

Monumental Moments

See the flowers and pretty colors? Yes, I'm anxious for spring! :-)

I have a reissued book coming out at the end of the month. It's "TEMPTED," a compilation of 3 oldies with hideous titles that I did NOT choose. They're "Annie Get Your Guy," "Messing Around With Max," and "Little Miss Innocent?" I know, poo, huh?

But I'm so glad the book is being reissued because readers often ask me about those books.

And the reissue reminded me of how utterly THRILLED I was for that first reissue. It was a milestone of sorts, a sign that my writing had gotten popular enough that it was financially beneficial to the publisher to start reissuing old titles.

That made me think of other monumental career moments...
Like first meeting Stella Cameron. That happened before I'd ever published and I was having a complete and total fangirl moment, carrying a bag of my "Stella books" to be signed. I think I'd picked her up at the airport for my local chapter during a conference. I was immediately agog when she stopped to use the payphone to call "Jayne," (yes, you should have seen my face when I realized STELLA CAMERON was in front of me, and she was calling JAYNE ANN KRENTZ, and I was privy to it all. LOL

Later Stella and I talked about my writing and she encouraged me in ways too great to go into. Stella can take a lot of credit for getting me on my published path so I can never think of monumental moments without thinking of her.

And then there's the time I was asked to be in an antholgoy, “Charmed,” with THE Jayne Ann Krentz. Holy cow, yes! Sign me up. I think I danced around the house for a week. I was also in Beguiled (which was first?) with Jayne, but that was a reissue of Jayne's with a new book of mine, totally meant to give me a boost - and it did! I loved my publisher for that.

You should have seen me when I first got to meet Linda Howard. I was totally tongue-tied. Later, when Linda invited me to speak to her chapter and even asked if I wanted to stay at her house... well, let me tell you, THAT was a big moment!

(Just last year at the RWA convention, Linda saw me and said, "Hi Lori," and I said, "Oh my God, you remember me!" LOL Heidi Betts was with me - she's a lovely person - and she said, "Well of course she remembers you. But there was no "of course" in there for me. I'll always be a fangirl for some of my favorite authors.)

Meeting those ladies and finding them so warm, genuine and REAL ranks right up there with the first time I sold, when I first got a multi-book contract, when I first made a bestseller list, and later, when I first made the NYTimes. It's even as grand as now being able to nix titles that I don't like. :-D

What about you? Have you had any great monumental life moments, or career moments? I'm not counting getting married and having kids, though I know those are very special times for many of us.

Have you ever met someone you admire? Were you disappointed or surprised in any way by the person?
Have you had an unexpected raise or promotion?
Have you ever gotten to rub elbows with someone you consider important or notable in some way?

If not, come join me at the 6th Annual "Reader and Author" Get Together. There'll be over 100 authors there, and publishers, editors, agents, and industry professionals. ;-) You'll get to meet lots of very notable peeps! Of course, there'll be a whole lot of readers, too! Only $50 (to cover your meals) to register for the entire weekend.
Deets are here: http://www.lorifoster.com/community/readergettogether.php

Have a wonderful Friday everyone!

Lori
aka
L. L. Foster
http://www.lorifoster.com/

On vacation with books

Happy almost-to-the-end-of-February, everyone! I'm in south Florida with my husband, son, mother and sister, enjoying a break from winter. We're getting a foot of snow at home today. Nice for cross-country skiing when we get back but right now...I'm at the pool enjoying the Florida warmth and sunshine.

Whenever I'm on the road, I love to stop into bookstores. Yesterday I wandered into a nearby Barnes & Noble and snapped up my copy of Stella's OUT OF BODY. That cover just "pops." It was hard to resist so many of the other books with it, but I brought several with me and try to buy only one at a time when I'm on the road. Otherwise I end up with an even heavier suitcase!

I dove right in. OUT OF BODY is a great read. I'm having a blast. Reading on vacation's always fun, but reading a book by a friend makes it even more special. I'll finish it today and wander back to the bookstore and

see what else I find. My sister's reading Sue Grafton's U IS FOR UNDERTOW right now, and my mother's reading a Patrick Taylor book. Zack's reading I, SNIPER by Stephen Hunter, and Joe's reading Robert Crais's new Joe Pike book -- I read it on the flight down here and it's so good.

We walk and read a lot on vacation, but we'll hit Los Olas and maybe the casino, and we're trying new restaurants as well as old favorites...I had fried plantains yesterday. We don't exactly get those in my corner of Vermont. ;-)

Congratulations, Stella, on a wonderful start to a terrific new series. I can't wait for the second book, even if I'm reading it by the woodstove home in Vermont!

Do you like to read on vacation? Obviously Stella's book didn't hang out in my "TBR" pile for long, but what's in your "TBR" pile -- whether you're reading at home, in a hammock on the beach, or on break at work?

Take care, and have a great day!

Carla

P.S. Just back with Kate Douglas's DEMON FIRE!