Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

THE WIZARD'S VIRUS      “Aw, crud no.” The wizard banged his hand on his keyboard and then frantically clicked around with his mouse checking all his spell files: Text documents of magic words, pictures of runes, spreadsheets of magical creature species. He looked through his entire computer and almost all his data was ruined and hacked. Files missing and damaged.      “What happened?” He muttered.       His Internet browser was still open from the night before. Looking at that, he realized what had happened. He downloaded pirated enchantment data for school. When he downloaded it he thought, “What's one stolen spell gonna cost me?”      But apparently whoever uploaded the data for the enchantment file, hid a virus inside. All the magically formed programs and files loaded into the mystic gems on his hard drive (wizards favored gems over disks and other data storage means) had all been ruined. And m...

I am finally able to attend a conference, and I am really looking forward to my chapter’s Desert Dreams http://desertroserwa.org/desertdreams event from April 7-10 th in Scottsdale, Arizona. I miss seeing friends, and look forward to catching up doing my favorite thing: talking about writing with other writers. But there’s so much more to be gained from a conference, so I’d like to suggest a few tips for those of you attending any conference, but especially one held by your own chapter. If you can, support your chapter with more than just your registration fee. Invest in some swag for the goodie bags. Bookmarks are great, but unfortunately, there’s so many of them that I often see them discarded. So try for something a little more substantial (I give out nail files with a plastic case that has my website address on it.) Get creative with something that attendees will actually keep, at least for a while. If you do a bookmark, why not have a ruler on the other side? At least yo...

in Booklist's 101 Best Romance Novels of the last TEN years! Just one book making the list would have been thrilling. That two of my novels from THE ELVEN LORDS series were included is such an honor. I would also like to congratulate all the other Sourcebooks Casablanca authors who also made the list.  Did your favorite author make the list? You can view it here: http://bit.ly/1i0AnfA Here are the beautiful covers designed by Sourcebooks for these novels: Why did Booklist call THE ELVEN LORDS series "superb"? You can try out this amazing magical world for just 99 Cents with the latest short novelette THE ASSASSIN'S LOVER, available at your favorite on-line retailer: AMAZON KOBO GOOGLE PLAY B&N NOOK APPLE ITUNES

When I first started writing THE ASSASSIN’S LOVER I knew I had a difficult task. The world of THE ELVEN LORDS is a magical land, and because of this my characters find themselves in an unusual situation, but the feelings had to be real. The heart and soul of my two characters had to be exposed in just one night, and the blossoming of love had to be felt. In just one night.                        In most of my books love grows over time, through a sharing of thoughts and actions; that tell my two characters they are meant for each other. But this story was different…I had to somehow take my characters through situations that could reveal their hearts and souls enough to fall in love in just one night. I have written several blog posts where I go on a musical journey, by finding songs that portray scenes from my books, and so I go to Youtube and search for lyrics with ...

Prologue The link between the world of man and Elfhame had sundered long ago, the elven people and their magic fading to legend. Tall beings of extraordinary beauty, the fae preferred a world of peace. But seven elves--considered mad by their own people--longed for power and war. They stole sacred magical scepters, created their dragon-steeds, and opened the gate to the realm of man again and flew through. Each elf carved a sovereign land within England, replacing the baronies that had so recently been formed by William the Conqueror. They acquired willing and unwilling slaves to serve in their palaces and till their lands. And fight their wars. Like mythical gods they set armies of humans against each other, battling for the right to win the king, who’d become nothing more than a trophy. They bred with their human slaves, producing children to become champions of their war games. The elven lords maintained a unified pact, using the scepters in a united will to place ...

A big thank you to Rights Manager Sara Hartman-Seeskin for the sale of the foreign rights to Japan for THE FIRE LORD'S LOVER...AND for sending me a copy of the book. Here's a copy of the Japanese cover: How cool is that? I lived several years in Okinawa when my dad was in the Air Force, and have fond memories of the people and island, so this is especially thrilling for me. My son has a friend who is studying the Japanese language, and I'm looking forward to her translating some of the book to me. It will be fascinating to hear how my voice has changed (although I imagine much will be in the hands of the translator, hence her name right by mine on the cover). It's interesting that the book is about 2/3 the size of an American paperback. It also has a dust jacket, which you usually only see on hardcover books. Have I mentioned lately how much I adore my publisher, Sourcebooks? Below is a picture of my family in Okinawa, and the backside of me running a...

There is only one good thing about taking a medical leave, and that is I have time to catch up on my reading. When I’m writing and in the middle of a book, it’s more difficult to leave my world, and enter someone else’s. So today I’m giving a list of the books I’ve read over the past few months, books that have helped me forget the pain…and the frustration of not being able to work. The good thing about being a writer is, I can call it all research! Since I knew I had a blog post coming up, I thought I’d share some of the fabulous books I’ve read recently. I have good days and bad, so when I have the good, I can post an entry for a later date. Unfortunately, I never know if on that date, I’m gonna be having a day where I’m feeling well enough to respond to any remarks, so if I’ve missed you at any time, my apologies, and I hope that when my issues are resolved I can get back to being more reliable regarding comments. Romance novels aren’t just romances anymore. Ask any avi...

The obvious answer is of course, yes. Men have different triggers that spark their interest. So I thought it would be fun to hand EVERLASTING ENCHANTMENT over to a young man and have him choose random sentences from each chapter that sparked his interest. These are definitely not sentences I would have chosen, so I found them fascinating...and am sharing them with you here today: Quotes from EVERLASTING ENCHANTMENT Ch. 1 Page 13: Surely her companion knew that baronets had the strength to rip ...

It's not the cost of the gift that counts, it's the thought. And my dear husband knocked it out of the ball park this year. I have some favorite things: most anything sparkly, or sweet (especially chocolate) pink roses, peacocks, hummingbirds, velvet, lace and fairies. My passion for pink roses even made it onto my Christmas tree this year: And I'm working on a light garden right outside my sliding glass door in my bedroom, which includes a hummingbird and fairy: I have a ridiculous amount of peacocks decorating my vanity, and roses are starting to bloom all over my house (although I keep them mostly limited to the bedroom, and just a few other places around the house. I live with two other males, and try not to inundate them with my girlie stuff. I. Really. Do. Try.) I'll do another blog post later about my favorite things, with some more photos. But in the meantime, given that you now know my tastes, can you guess what my husband gave me for Va...

A couple months back I adopted a new puppy from http://www.homeanimalrescue.com/litter1.html#top . I named her Pikachu (Yes, from the Pokemon game my son loves). A mix of Chihuahua and some mystery breed, I proceeded to fall in love. And Pikachu proceeded to find joy in being spoiled rotten. Problem was, my old dog couldn't handle a bouncing, playful pup, and would growl at Pikachu every time the puppy came near. And I couldn't blame either one of them. My poor old Baggins needed a comfy snooze and three meals. Pikachu needed...someone to play with. I mean, I tried, I truly did. But I couldn't play with her 24-7, I have to work. And despite the fact that I work from home, I knew my Pikachu was lonely. You know what's coming next, right? Having all these thoughts in my head, I did a crazy thing and walked into a pet store (NO puppy mills here, all the dogs are from reputable breeders) and saw the scrawniest, scraggliest little Yorkshire Terrier. Despite all the othe...

I have to start with the bad news first, and I hate posting anything negative on any blog, so I'll make it quick. I lost my dear Chihuahua, Precious, last month, due to a breathing condition pretty much brought about by old age. She died in my arms, and it about broke my heart. I loved that little dog.   I knew no other dog could replace her, but I began to look at rescue dogs, cause it somehow felt as if her death would be more meaningful if it brought about a loving home for another dog who really needed one. And so we found Pikachu, a Chihuahua mix, (and I keep guessing as to the other part. She has soft fluffy hair, so I'm thinking Pomeranian?) Anyway, she had a rough start, barely escaping euthanasia. Her rescue name was Fergie, and if you have the stomach for it, you can read about her journey here: http://www.homeanimalrescue.com/litter1.html#top I found her on the following website, and it was such a thrill to see the words ADOPTED, and know that I...

My family and I visited the Phoenix Art Museum last weekend, and of course I headed for the European/American History exhibit right away. To my surprise, they had changed the rules to allow photographs of many of their displays, so I'm sharing the best of them with you all today. The art museum has a miniatures room, with glass cases of historically accurate rooms as they would appear in the nineteenth century (1800's), which of course includes my favorite Victorian era. Although the miniatures are such fun to study in person, the rooms actually look real in a photograph. I have a difficult time getting royalty-free pics for my blog and website, so I thought I'd share these with you all in case you'd like to use some yourself. You'll see some French designs, many European scenes, and some that are American. Enjoy! And here's some photographs I took of some remarkable paintings: Feel free to copy...