Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

Today's the day--the release date for Cowboy Trouble, my first published novel. I'll be celebrating tonight with a launch party at our local Barnes & Noble, where I've worked for the past eight years. Selling my own book in my home-away-from-home bookstore has been amazing. When the book arrived and I opened the box--wow. I can't even begin to describe how it felt to see that handsome cowboy waiting for me! With the book's release, my characters--Luke, Libby, Cash, and Crazy Mike, among others--will finally be set loose on the world, along with all their attendant critters--Ivan, Penny, the Verminators, and Wild Thing the feral chicken. First, you'll meet Libby Brown, a big-city journalist who's fleeing a romance gone wrong. She's determined to live a solitary, self-sufficient life, so she moves to the most isolated area she can think of and literally buys the farm: thirty-five acres of sagebrush and a quaint clapboard homestead in Lackaduck, Wyomin...

Our theme for the month is love -- but what I'd like to talk about is luv . You know, those secret passions we nursed in middle school. All those hours we spent daydreaming of fantasy boyfriends back in seventh grade were the perfect preparation for the rigors of romance writing. Of course, our dream dates weren't entirely fictional; they were generally based on real people. For instance, when I was twelve, all my friends were in love with Donny Osmond and David Cassidy. I wasn't. I was a geeky little kid who listened to a lot of classical music, and I was smart enough to know that Down By the Lazy River and I Think I Love You were not going to stand the test of time. I also thought shiny hair and perfect teeth were way overrated. I wanted a man with brains. That's why I fell in love with Jacques Cousteau. My friends laughed at my secret crush. They saw Jacques as a wizend little French guy in Speedos and a beanie who was baked to a crisp by a lifetime in the sun and p...