Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

The human mind is a twisty thing—a truism romance writers love to exploit. Case in point: Searching for a punchy first line for this blog, my mind offers up song lyrics. “So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu …” When I reject that, “The time has come for us to say ‘Sayonara’” pops in. No? Well, how about “Vaya con Dios, my darling?” Eventually, I recognize my mind’s ploy: I don’t want to say goodbye so the unconscious substitutes other languages, euphemisms to distance myself, and my readers, from my message. No sooner do I recognize the truth than the phrase generator gives me Michael Jackson belting out, “Never can say goodbye—no, no, no.” Sheesh! Next I think of the exquisitely graceful blogs Renee, Sharon and other authors who were moving on have written. Now, my mind is looking for models—something to go by. Seems logical, doesn’t it? But God. I can’t touch them! And anyway, what I’m really doing is looking for a way, if I must write ...

by Mary Margret Daughtridge The paths life takes us down… I can’t say I ever had any ambition to be a writer. I just wanted to write a romance—just because it looked like a fun challenge. “Looked like a fun challenge ?” my inner critic raises her eyebrows in ladylike incredulity at the above sentence. “What is the matter with you?” “Well,” I shrug. “It did.” First, you must understand I’m a reading addict. I can’t not read. If I don’t have a book, I will read catsup bottles, all the pamphlets in any waiting room, including the soil analysis reports. I must read whether I want to or not. Wallpaper with words on it drives me crazy. It does not matter how many times I have already seen it; I will still read it the next time. This ability/curse makes me able to read the same book over and over. Trust me—that’s an indispensible ability for a writer to have. You will read your book over and over, in draft after draft. After draft. After draft. And that’s before your editor gets ...

By Mary Margret Daughtridge I have to smile a little whenever people congratulate me, in light of recent events, for having the foresight to launch my writing career around SEALs. Like I knew SEALs would take out Osama Bin Laden. Or their exploits would be in the news the same week SEALed Forever was released. I smile mostly because when I started the first SEAL book, SEALs were so rarely in the news, I often had to explain exactly what SEALs were. Well, I don't have to any more. Though people finally know how extraordinary they are, I cannot bask in reflected glory. Really. I didn’t create SEALs. Nor have I burnished their reputations. They did that on their own. I just took a stock romantic suspense character and asked, “But what happens when the operation is over and they come home?” I'm writing entertainment fiction, but I refuse to trivialize them. My biggest challenge is to depict how astonishing SEALs really are—I admit I clean them up a little; the uni...

by: Leah Hultenschmidt, Senior Editor I think people sometimes get so caught up in certain scenes—and you know the ones I mean—when it comes to romance that they forget that the love story itself is so much more. An amazing romance goes way beyond acrobatics in the bedroom (or kitchen or car or forest or…). It’s the small tender moments that, to me, really demonstrate a deep and abiding love that make the characters so memorable. One of my favorite examples comes from IN FOR A PENNY by Rose Lerner (and I hope Rose won’t be upset with me for a small spoiler): The most touching scene to me in this book had nothing to do with actual romance. To briefly set up: Nev & Penelope have been trying to make work a marriage of convenience— he’s an aristocrat in need of money and worries that he’s not smart/admirable enough, and she’s from the wealthy merchant class but never feels as though she truly fits in High Society. They truly care for each other, but they’ve quarreled and ...

By Mary Margret Daughtridge When I was a little girl, Thanksgiving dinner preparations started in July. We might have roast turkey or sweet potato pie anytime there was a large crowd coming to dinner. But pickled peaches were a delicacy, reserved for state occasions and religion-sanctioned holidays. Like Thanksgiving. "Getting ready for Thanksgiving” officially began on whatever hot day in July Daddy came home with a couple of bushels of glowing, golden peaches. With Mama issuing orders, we sprang into action. No cooking dinner today. Yellow freestone peaches (not too big, not too small) at the exact, perfect stage of ripe-yet-firm and ready to be pickled, waited for no woman. My brother David (In my movie-memory of those days he’s always around eleven with serious blue eyes and crew-cut, blond hair) was sent to the pantry to bring out cartons of dusty canning jars. I was set to washing them at the sink. At nine, I was too young to be trusted, and too short anyway, t...

By Mary Margret Daughtridge It's almost Halloween, the time of year when we celebrate the frightful. You know what scares me? Warning signs—the kind you don’t know exactly what to do with. Like Warning: Do Not Remove This Tag Under Penalty Of Law. I’ve been thinking recently about the sort of advice/warning that I never know what I’m supposed to do with. Which makes me feel stupid. And alarmed in a misty, amorphous way. The issue came up this weekend as I traveled to North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Parkway. The leaves are spectacular this year. But I didn’t see all that much of them. I had forgotten that on the Parkway, you’re on a road that’s hugging the nearly vertical side of a mountain. Now see, right there, I’ve got a problem. I spent my formative years on the coastal plain of North Carolina where the land is F.L.A.T-flat, and the only time it’s not, is when it’s lower than flat. In which case it’s filled with water so the visual impression is still flatness. My deepest ...

By Mary Margret Daughtridge The other day, in reference to a promo blog I had written about SEALed Forever (coming in 2011) I received this from my editor: I changed "her house is haunted" to "a house could be haunted" b/c I don't want your readers to think there's a ghost--you can't go paranormal now. She's absolutely right. I don't write "paranormals," and I wouldn't want to give the impression that I do...but. SEALed Forever has plenty of "things that go bump in the night." It got me thinking, what’s “paranormal” anyway? The word was coined in 1920 as a neutral term intended to separate the legitimate study of psychic phenomena from spiritualism, the supernatural, and superstition. It was meant to give psychic phenomena a platform which made it susceptible to scientific investigation. It didn’t work. Thirty or forty years later, study of psychical occurrences had completely bogged down between extraordi...

As I remarked in a comment on Cheryl’s blog yesterday, I have an abundance of revisions to finish by my deadline, which is today. As a result, I have (1)an abundance of food past its throw-out date in the refrigerator. (2) an abundance of cat hair lying in gray drifts in corners, on the stairs, under the bed, the sofa…you catch my—er—drift. I have an abundance of (4) dirty laundry—just like the blessings promised in the Bible—piled together, pressed down (into the laundry hamper) and running over. (5) I have abundance of leaves covering the patio. Not your colorful red and gold autumn leaves. They’re a sort of gray-green, dropped because of the extreme dry heat of the last several weeks. Regardless, they need to be swept up, and they haven't been. I’m not even going to talk about the (7) shoes lying where they were kicked off, or the (8) mail waiting to be sorted. And you know what? I’m grateful for every one of them—including the revisions. Because the reason I hav...

Terry Spear shares My mission at Nationals was to find a wolf. Mice all over the place, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy looking dogs, and dogs named after planets. Wolves??? The closest I got was The Three Little Pigs in a store in one of the International Worlds in Epcot. Not that wolf. That's where they tell about a big, bad wolf. So the search was on. But in the meantime, (I had flown to Orlando from Pensacola the weekend before where I had watched my son get married, and danced with him to a groom/mother dance--all very touching and I fought tears but didn't succeed when the bride, Malinie's sister cried during a speech, her brother did, and then my daughter did...that was it...and of course, Malinie's mother was crying beside me, so I didn't stand a chance. But it had a happily ever after ending and they went to Hawaii--and found all four of my wolf tales in B&N!!!!)...I was at the Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Disney, and Epcot with my daughter before the conference rea...

Me at a booksigning, laughing, getting rowdy. Observe the man in the background, trying desperately to keep his mind on what he's doing despite the commotion. by Mary Margret Daughtridge I had another blog on the subject of humor all written, but this was too good a story not to share. I don't have a group shot of us but picture a group of women, all shall we say post-mature, but only one whose hair has been allowed to gray. Pictured are the publisher of a monthly wellness newspaper, a physician, the owner of a car dealership, a neurofeedback therapist, and me, a novelist. One time I arrived late at the upscale restaurant where I was meeting them for dinner. “You made it! Did you have any trouble finding us?” they wanted to know as they scooted over to make room for me at the table in the large dining room. “Not a bit." I shook open my napkin. "When I got here, I realized I didn’t know what name the reservation was in, and I couldn’t think of how to describe ...

by Mary Margret Daughtridge Beginning writers are often advised to “Write what you know.” Beginning romance writers are told to “Write the book you would love to read.” If that wouldn’t be a romance, you’re out of luck, according to Donald Maass. "Romance," he says, "cannot be faked."Fortunately for me, romance is what I love, and today I launch my third: SEALed with a Ring. A publishing contract usually specifies a number of copies of the book that the author will receive as part of the deal. Typically your author’s copies arrive a few weeks before the book goes on sale. It’s neat. You see it before anyone else does. You slit the brown tape on the box and are immediately transported by the heady zing of fresh ink, the clean, woody aroma of paper that hasn’t been touched. You slide your fingers over the cover, relishing the smooth slipperiness of plastic coated colors. And then you take the books out and line them up side, by side, by side, by side. You...