Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

from Mia Marlowe... I'm so tired of summer. It's been hot and sticky and busy. I'm ready for crisp days and shivery nights. I want to see the winter constellations begin to peek over the horizon. I'm ready to break out my sweaters and woolly socks. Something about autumn just calls for a stack of books and cocooning and evenings spent before a crackling fire. Of course, it also means that winter is coming, but I'll put up with that for the glory of fall.   Of course, autumn promises to be as busy as summer as far as writing goes. I have new books coming out in both October and November. On October 7th, Once Upon a Plaid hits the bookstore shelves. It's the story of William and Kat, two people who love each other dearly, but what is a couple to do in 16th century Scotland when a laird needs an heir and his beloved wife is barren? Many tears fell on the keyboard while I was writing this Christmas story. I'm thrilled to share that Publishers Weekly gave i...

from Mia Marlowe ... I was fascinated by Gina Conkle's blog from yesterday about heroes and our favorite archetypes. (I confess a weakness for both the Arrogant Alpha and the Wounded Soldier.) Her post made me think about what usually happens when I give my Meat on the Bones characterization workshop to writers' groups. The function of the protagonist in fiction is to give readers a character to care about and pull for and we've been blessed with lots of terrific heroes. I always invite attendees to call out their favorite heroes from books, TV and the big screen. The names fly fast and furious and I finally have to cut them off so the workshop can move forward. Then I ask for favorite heroines. Cue the crickets. Finally, someone will sheepishly raise a hand and ask with a questioning lilt, "How about Dorothy?"  This worries me. It makes me think we writers are not doing our job if we can't create more memorable heroines. If my readers don't wan...

from Mia Marlowe... I'm back in the Midwest for a visit and got caught in the wicked ice storm/blizzard that cut across the Ozarks yesterday and today. We barely made it in last night, creeping through near white out conditions on icy roads. I know what you're thinking. Why on earth did we set out in the storm? The answer is we didn't. The sun was shining when we started, but about 100 miles from our destination, conditions deteriorated rapidly. Our alternative was to hole up in a flea bag motel along the way and expect to be eating out of vending machines for a few days while the south digs itself out. So we pressed on and the time honored quote was proven true. God does protect innocents and fools. (If you've read my books, you know I'm not innocent!) But we're safe and sound, albeit with spotty internet. We're not going anywhere. It's a great day to put on a big pot of vegetable soup and catch up on those movies you've got recorded but nev...

from Mia Marlowe... Break out the bubbly! Toot the noisemakers! One Night with a Rake has landed in a bookstore near you. I'm excited about this story for so many reasons, but mostly because I love the characters. My hero Nate is as conflicted and tortured as any romance reader could wish. The heroine Georgette is full of good intentions that constantly get her into trouble. And they're surrounded by fun secondary characters, like Reuben Darling, the handsome, but not terribly "book smart" footman who's suffering from an unrequited love for Mercy, Georgette's lady's maid. (Mercy is a reformed whore who thinks being a respectable woman is ever so much more trouble than being a light-skirt!) While I love One Night with a Rake now, it's true that we writers never love our stories quite so much as when they are finished. It's easy to love a gorgeous cover and ringing prose that took a number of sharp eyes to shine up. It's the birthing ...

from Mia Marlowe... New York Times bestseller Connie Mason and I have been collaborating on a couple novels already this year--SINS OF THE HIGHLANDER and LORD OF FIRE AND ICE. Now we have a new release called LORD OF DEVIL ISLE ! It's a Georgian set story with plenty of steamy romance, smuggling and a major Revolutionary War incident rolled into the mix. Here's a short excerpt:   Lord of Devil Isle Nicholas reached over to brush an errant lock of hair from Eve’s cheek, but she shied like a whipped pup. “Easy, lass,” he said, as he tucked the strand behind her ear. Her cheek was soft, but lightly grained with salt from her time in the sea. “Check your bearings. You’re safe now.” Nicholas opened his sea trunk and pulled out a dry shirt. He thought about offering her one, but she’d been given an opportunity to find dry clothes and dismissed it. Besides, she was now thoroughly engulfed in his heavy oilskin coat. Pity. He’d have enjoyed the show till the muslin dr...

from Mia Marlowe ... I've heard it said that radio dramas were "theatre of the mind." Listening to radio stories wasn't a passive activity in the way movies or stage plays are. The story didn't merely wash over you. It was an active sort of entertainment. Listeners had to populate their mental stages with all the characters and action they could only hear. They had to build the settings and put the characters in motion in a world they alone could see. Radio dramas were good mental exercise, but IMO, books are what really provide this experience. With only ink on a page, readers have to collaborate with the author to populate the story with flesh and blood characters, to build a whole world filled with sights, sounds, smells and textures. But what happens when the world is so different from what a reader is used to? One of my intrepid Dutch readers had no trouble imagining Brandr, my hot, fire mage hero. Of course, the wonderful cover helps there. But s...

from Mia Marlowe ... I'm so excited to share that LORD OF FIRE AND ICE , my 2nd collaborative novel with New York Times bestseller Connie Mason, is whisking its way to a bookseller near you. It'll hit the shelves July 3rd, just in time for a leisurely holiday read! The reviews have been fantastic: A vixen and a Viking warrior match wits and kisses "The story is compelling with a rich narrative, strong characters and non-stop action. This is a tale of greed, revenge, justice and desire. Readers will enjoy a feisty, confident heroine and the courageous hero who willingly stands at her side through the good and the bad." ~ RTBOOKReviews Connie and I are delighted to bring you this cross-over tale. We've mixed a healthy dollop of magic in with this historical romance. Our hero Brandr is a fire mage. He can call flames from the air and control the element with a thought. But the real heat starts when he's enslaved by Katla the Black, a widow with reve...

from Mia Marlowe... I'm a lucky girl and I know it. My DH has been a travel industry IT professional for most of his working life. Because of that, we've been able to take lots of trips that wouldn't have been possible for us otherwise. I've tagged along on his business trips to England, Ireland, Brussels, Germany and the Netherlands. He works, bless the man, and I get to overdose on museums and cultural treasures. Yeah, it's not fair, but he doesn't complain.   Yesterday I had a 48 hour day. We were returning from a week in Tokyo ( The pic above was taken from the window of the office building where my DH was working. That bit of white in the distance is Mt. Fuji--150 miles away!) It was a little like time travel because we left Narita airport at 3 PM on March 3rd and arrived at JFK in New York at 1 PM also on March 3rd! Tokyo, a city of 12 million souls, is a fascinating place. It's a study in contrasts, dense high rises, covered "gerbi...

from Mia Marlowe... Update: Thanks to everyone who left a comment or question. I love hearing from you. My random winner is Betty Hamilton! If you didn't win, don't despair. I hope you'll pop over to my website for a chance to win a whole box of books just in time for Christmas! It's easy to list off the big things for which we're thankful. It requires a little more thought to recognize the small joys of our daily lives. We have to pay attention. We have to be intentional about noticing that glow of warmth that steals over us. When I was a child, I had a little book of verse called The Cheerful Cherub by Rebecca McCann. I love this collection of optimistic rhymes and many of the ones I committed to memory as a girl are with me still. Here's one that really describes what I'm talking about today: One minor joy I have in fall Almost too small to speak about-- It's after rain to step on leaves And see the water spurting out. Now that's a very small jo...

from Mia Marlowe... I won't say I actually saw a ghost when I was a kid, but I did see something . I blogged about it at Brava Authors so I won't repeat myself here. But as an adult, I do definitely feel as if I had a visitation from a departed loved one. It came in the form of a vivid dream. A few months after my grandfather died, I dreamed of him. Instead of looking haggard and wasted as he had when I saw him near the end of his life, he was robust and happy. He winked at me and said, "Tell your grandma I love her." So, of course, I had to call my grandma and tell her about my dream. She was so relieved. You see, she'd been catching glimpses of my grandfather around their house. From the corner of her eye, she'd seen him standing in a doorway, but when she'd turn her head, he'd disappear. She feared she was going crazy. Fortunately, I was able to reassure her. I'd just read an article about how people often see departed loved ones in familiar p...

UPDATE: The randomly chosen winner of a copy of IMPROPER GENTLEMEN is Di! Please contact me through my website with your mailing info. To everyone else, thank you for commenting. I hope you'll pop by and enter my contest where you'll have a chance at winning an ARC of SINS OF THE HIGHLANDER (Jan 2012)! from Mia Marlowe I've always been an eclectic reader. Even though I write romance, I'm just as likely to pick up a mystery or a fantasy novel for my private enjoyment. I've even been known to burn through one of my DH's techno-thrillers. But for the past few months with my book club, I've been dipping a toe into the murky waters of mainstream fiction. You know what I mean. These are quasi-literary tomes. They're Oprah picks and the darlings of the media. While they're admittedly well-written, they are also almost universally depressing. It makes me wonder afresh why the romance genre takes so many hits from the media. I used to think it was because o...

from Mia Marlowe ... At one of my first booksignings, a lady I knew asked me, "Why do you write those kind of books?" The subtext of the question was "Why do you write explicit sex scenes?" My answer is that I write about life and I don't want to put any aspect of my character's experiences off limits if it advances the story or deepens my reader's insight into the secret life of my characters. It's been noted that having sex is the most intimate thing you can do with someone while not really knowing what's going on in the other person's mind. Sometimes, you're not even sure what's tumbling around in your own. My heroine Rosalinde experienced that in A Knack for Trouble , my novella in the new anthology IMPROPER GENTLEMEN . In the following excerpt, Rosalinde is having a bit of an argument with herself while she allows Aidan to take more and more liberties: If we only kiss, we’ve been a bit improper, but no worse than if we w...

When people ask me to share my call story, I'm tempted to ask "Which one?" You see, I've had three different pen names since my initial debut in 2006. I know. It's a weird situation, but it's a fact of publishing life. If all the writers who have more than one pseudonymn turned purple tomorrow, there would be lots of purple authors out there. I started writing dark, angsty viking romances for Leisure Books with the fabulous Leah Hultenschmidt as my editor. I wrote three books as Diana Groe, then asked Leah if it was ok for me to try adding a bit of humor to the 2nd book in a two book contract. She gave me the green light, but when I turned in my manuscript, she said it was so different from my previous stories, I was likely to give my readers whiplash. Emily Bryan was born. Under this light-hearted alter-ego, I wrote 5 stories. Things were rolling along. My work was winning awards and was translated into 7 different languages. But change is the one constant in...

Update: The winner of Mia Marlowe's random drawing is Carrie! Please contact Mia through her website with your snailmail so she can mail out your prize. If you didn't win, don't despair. Mia has a contest at MiaMarlowe.com that will end June 26th. The prize for that contest is a Ready for the Beach Box of Books! Our theme for the month is fascinating women. Since my Casablanca debut ( Sins of the Highlander , January 2012) is set in 16th century Scotland, I've had great fun researching this setting and time period. In my digging, I've discovered some intriguing things about Mary, Queen of Scots. I always knew she was Elizabeth I's cousin and that she met her end on the chopping block, but I didn't know much about her life. It was like a medieval soap opera, with ill-considered marriages at the heart of her downfall. Made me think Elizabeth was wise to remain the Virgin Queen. When she was five years old, Mary Stuart was sent to France to avoid a forced mar...