Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

**FREE X-OPS SHORT STORY - KIDNAPPING IN THE BLACK HILLS** I'm sharing an **exclusive** FREE **X-OPS** short story with my newsletters subscribers to celebrate the release of **HER ROGUE ALPHA**, Book 5 in the X-OPS Series. The story features the Angelo and Minka, the Special Forces hero and feline shifter heroine from **HER FIERCE WARRIOR (X-OPS 4)** and will be delivered to your inbox 8/29 - 9/2. Sign up here! http://eepurl.com/bM8ykT   *hugs* Paige 

This week my fellow authors have put some amazing recipes on this blog...I want to drink rose hip mead while eating that luscious soup! I have not been cooking much, but I have been enjoying fresh fruit...so delicious... Two Healthy Kitchens  provides this beautiful photo of blueberries and watermelon, two of my main luxuries this summer. Along with chocolate, of course. But chocolate brings me joy all year round. Thanks to  Dreamstime , here's an  image of another of my summer pleasures, cantaloupe. I eat this almost every morning with my breakfast and I love it. Another way I've been spoiling myself and enjoying the heat is by walking at the Biltmore House. The grounds are lovely and the river follows along part of the property and draws me to it with the lovely sound of flowing water. I work up an appetite strolling along the grounds, but instead of fruit, I usually eat ice cream afterward. Mint Chocolate Chip is my favorite. What's your favorite ind

I live in Northern Idaho, so late July and early August is a crucial time for me. It's huckleberry season. Huckleberries are somewhat related to blueberries, only they have a more extreme flavor. Very sweet with a touch of tartness. They're fairly expensive, selling for over fifty dollars a gallon, but like many Idahoans, I pick my own. To go get huckleberries, one needs to go high up in the mountains. Then you find your spot (and don't tell anyone where it is.) The bushes look like this: It can take a few hours to get a gallon, but it's so worth it. Be sure to pick them with your fingers because rakes will kill the bushes. When you finish, your fingers will be purple. Then when you get home, you still have to wash the berries. It's a ton of work, but totally worth it. Because now you can have huckleberry milkshakes, huckleberries on top of cake and ice cream, huckleberry jam, or just eat them straight like my grandpa. Some

" If any one element of French cooking can be called important, basic and essential, that element is soup." --Louis Diat, chef for the Ritz-Carlton After a mostly mild summer, with just a few hot days here and there, we're having our first real heat wave in my neck of the woods. Naturally, that presents a challenge when it comes to mealtimes, since one cannot subsist on ice cream--alas!--and an endless array of salads and cold sandwiches can pall faster than you'd think!  Fortunately, I discovered a solution nearly a year ago, during a similar hot spell:  vichyssoise, a cold soup that is simple, delicious, and doesn't require tons of exotic ingredients. There are countless variations on it, but in the end, the basics come down to stock (or broth), potatoes, leeks, and milk or cream. What I didn't know when I started researching the recipe was that vichyssoise has an interesting history. Despite the name, it originated not in France,

Happy Summer! Don't you love the sunshine and flowers? Warm, carefree days put me in a good mood. It's time for picnics and days at the beach or wiling away your time on a river or lake. If winter is the season to hunker down and work hard, summer is time to relax and for me time to experiment. This summer's grand experiment has been cooking and eating like a Viking. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Gina Conkle, writer of Viking and Georgian romance. I believe to know the soul of a people, look at their creative efforts in art and music. If you want to know the substance of their story, look at their food. Food tells us what people valued, how they connected with the land, it reveals social structures, rhythms of daily life, and yes, even romance. We mix food and romance together: the classic "dinner and a movie" date,  pairing aphrodisiacs champagne and strawberries, and the romantic picnic basket. If I remove the obvious chocolate, wha

Joanna M/Ms. Awesome is the winner of the Book Boyfriend tote and the Rita-nominated books inside! Check your email, Joanna, or email me at shana@shanagalen.com Congrats!

The best part of the RWA National Conference isn't just the beautiful cities we get to visit, although San Diego is pretty cool. The view from my hotel room was spectacular, to say the very least. Getting there wasn't too horrible, despite being one of the longer days of my life. I caught brief glimpses of the Great Salt Lake from the plane during the approach to our first stop in Salt Lake City. On Wednesday, we took a trolley tour of the city, which was great fun. I was snapping pictures as fast as I could (about 250 in all). This is one of the better ones. Just wish I could remember what it was. We had lunch in Little Italy, and since I wasn't the one driving the trolley, I felt justified in having wine with lunch. After that, I went a bit wild in Old Town and bought a Mexican skirt and a purse and a few other accessories. I wore the stuff I bought to the Literacy Signing on Wednesday evening. Wish you could see the skirt in this picture. The p

Last week romance authors from all around the world met in San Diego, California to learn more about the business and craft of writing, meet with industry professionals, and just have fun! I love the Romance Writer's of America conference because it's a yearly meet up with old friends,  plus a way to make new friends and fangirl over my favorite authors. This year Sourcebooks Casablanca was fortunate enough to have 5 finalists for the prestigious Rita award for excellence in romance writing. Grace Burrowes seemed to elude our attempts to get a photo together, but here are 4 of us at a reception. Theresa Romain, Asa Maria Bradley, Shana Galen, ML Buchman We attended a reception outside, which was sunny and beautiful. Here's a closer look at my certificate. Another fun annual event is the Sourcebooks dinner. We went to Coronado this year, and Sourcebooks went all out with the tables and the party favors. We all received wraps to keep us warm during the chilly Sa

Advice for the newly published A top ten list Ashlyn Chase One: Yes, you have to be your own #1 fan, but don’t annoy people with so much promo (and only promo) that they groan when they see yet another one from you. Two: Try not to “hang onto” what others think of you. There will be a dozen good things and one bad—but it’s that one bad thing that will stick in your mind. Some people are just mean and don’t deserve your tears. Trust me.   Three: Keep it in perspective. A lot of people helped you get where you are—and will keep you there. No one can afford to be a snob. There are a couple of writers I won’t even share an elevator with, because they act like they’re better than everybody else.   Four: Have fun with your fans. Remember to know you is to love you. Let them get to know you—even if you’re shy. Five: If you hold a contest in order to get email addresses, be sure to tell people they’re agreeing to receive your newsletter. Nothing is so

Hello lovelies! First of all, I am absolutely honored to blog alongside this fine array of authors.  A quick intro: My debut novel, Under Her Skin, will be out with Sourcebooks Casablanca in February 2017. It’s a dark, emotional romance—the first in a series set in a small sleepy town in the lush mountains of Virginia—about love that goes more than skin deep. Over the past couple of weeks/months/years, I’ve seen a lot of things go wrong in this world. I don’t know about you, but every time I see troubling events on the news, I turn to Romance for a much needed influx of goodness. I’ve been thinking about just what it is about these stories that takes my mind off the bad things and reminds me of all that’s good in the world. Here are just a few of the things that make Romance a very happy place: Romance is an industry run by women, about women and for women. And women kick ass. I’ve never seen such an uplifting crew as the people I’ve met through romance. Every conference, e