Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

by Amanda Forester The biggest romance conference of the year, the annual Romance Writers of America Annual Conference, begins in just a few days and I am already on the road on the way to New York City.  So exciting! Some people are expert travelers. They can stuff everything they need for a month’s vacation into a carry on. I am not one of those people. I pack for an overnight looking like I’m going on an expedition to the North Pole. A trip to New York requires more luggage than I own, or certainly care to lug around.   So, I have had to get creative with my packing to make the most of the limited space I have.   Most people will tell you to take less stuff. That is excellent advice…but for those who need (or feel compelled) to bring more than they have space for, here are some tips for cramming more stuff into a small space. 1.        Roll Clothes – rolled clothes fit into the corners of small spaces better and actually ...

by Amanda Forester For Valentine's Day I have been thinking of what to get my sweetheart to show my love and affection. I got to thinking about what my previous heroes and heroines might give each other for Valentine's Day. But did medieval Highlanders celebrate Valentine's Day, you ask?   Maybe. How about in the Regency?   Most likely. In the 5th century, Pope Gelasius set aside February 14th as St. Valentine's Day, to honor a priest named Valentine who married couples in defiance of a Roman decree (he was sentenced to death for his romantic nature).   As early as the 15th century people were exchanging written valentines and love poems.   The practice has continued throughout the ages until the present day where over a billion valentines are sent each year.   Considered one of the most romantic days of the year, an estimated 6 million couples will become engaged on Valentine's Day.   Wow! So what will my historical heroes and heroines give eac...

by Amanda Forester It's Christmas time and I'm innocently writing away when my cat, an extra large cat I must add, begins to bat at my hands with his large furry paw.   Miles the cat has decided I have been spending enough time at the keyboard and I must take time to pet him. Now.   So I give his fuzzy head a scratch and attempt to return to my writing.   Again, the large, furry paw blocks my attempts and demands my attention.   I need to write, so we work out a compromise.   He will let me type, if I write him into the book.   Thus, Miles the cat makes a cameo appearance in Winter Wedding and becomes the unwanted Christmas present from our heroine, Penelope, who has rescued him from the freezing London streets, to the Dowager Duchess of Marchford.   E njoy!   “That done be the largest cat I ever saw,” said one of the grooms, coming in from the cold. “What are you gonna name it, miss?” asked a footman. “Miles,” said Penelope w...

by Amanda Forester I love the holidays. I particularly love that it starts with a celebration of that beautiful orange gourd - the pumpkin. I recently took the kids to a local pumpkin patch. We traipsed through the mud to find just the right pumpkin.   Pumpkins in the store are all round or oval, but in the field they come in a variety of shapes - round, square, rectangle, oval, and even some that have a waistline or fold over onto themselves.   I'm sure your choice of pumpkin says something about you, but I'm not sure what.   I chose a bright orange oval while my husband chose something that looked like a hunchback pumpkin.   I'm guessing that says something about his quirky sense of humor. At the pumpkin patch we came across bins of little pumpkin-like gourds of every shape and color imaginable - little orange pumpkins, mini white pumpkins, gourds that look like ghosts from Pac-man, gourds that look like crazy sea creatures, and even some gourds that lo...

by Amanda Forester I am excited to announce the release of the third and final book in the Marriage Mart - A Love For All Seasons trilogy, A Winter Wedding! Penelope Rose and the Duke of Marchford have been waiting, their attraction sizzling through the first two books of the series, and now it is finally their turn to step onto center stage. Miss Penelope Rose, the notorious Madame X, exclusive matchmaker to London's elite, has made a modest fortune creating love matches for everyone but herself. Her toughest client yet, the Duke of Marchford, has commissioned her to find him a bride, but he is more interested in tracking down a spy than in interviewing potential mates. Marchford is willing to do anything to find that spy, including announcing an impromptu engagement to force Penelope to stay close and help him catch the traitor. When Penelope refuses to play along, Marchford takes to wooing her to stay, including embracing that most perilous of holidays--Christmas! As Pe...

I am so excited to be launching Trouble With a Highland Bride !   This is the third novella in my Campbell Brides series and is the medieval prequel to my next Regency novel, Winter Wedding , which will be released next month. In the Campbell Brides trilogy, Laird Campbell invites several clans for a May Day celebration, but an English army crashes the party, intent on besieging the castle. Gwyn Campbell was certain she would meet her future husband at the May Day clan gathering, but she did not anticipate the troublesome English would chose that moment to put her castle under attack, and she certainly never expected to come across an injured English knight. She takes the errant knight captive only to find he is none other than their hated enemy, the English Captain Jack Lockton. Even more surprising, he is shockingly... handsome. On the verge of war, the forbidden love between Gwyn and Lockton may be their only hope. Although this is the third novella in the series, I act...

by Amanda Forester As I was writing Winter Wedding (to be released September 2014), my cat, Miles, decided he needed to be in it.   I'm not exactly sure why he decided he was going to be in the story, nor how precisely he conveyed such information, though sitting on my keyboard and incessantly batting at my fingers might have been some slight hint.   All I know is that my heroine was suddenly rescuing a very large, wet, hairy beast, that she impulsively gives to the duchess as a most unwanted pet.   Miles the cat comes in useful later in the story when I need to have my heroine have some logical reason to go into a cellar (you can never know how difficult it is to have characters go into dangerous places and how boring the story would be if they didn't) so I have forgiven my extra large cat the intrusion. Some of my favorite characters in books have not been human at all, but their animal pets/friends/sidekicks who provide support, compassion, humor, and uncondition...