Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

by Joanne Kennedy I'm so excited. Today is launch day for my latest contemporary Western romance,  Cowboy Crazy . It's about the West we all love--the West of horses, open spaces, and rodeo. Best of all, it's the West of my hottest cowboy hero yet, bull rider Lane Carrigan. Lane is an heir to the Carrigan Oil Corporation, but he's more interested in Wyoming's rough-riding past than its high-energy future. While his brother Eric runs the oil company, Lane takes care of the family's ranch. As more and more open country gets taken up with Wyoming's energy boom, Lane vows that the Carrigan Ranch will never be developed. Much to his family's dismay, he makes his opinions public on the nightly news, and it's up to Sarah Landon, the company's hot-shot publicity manager, to change his mind. Sarah's all about the future--mostly because she's running away from her past. She grew up in the tiny town of Two Shot, Wyoming, and she thinks a litt...

by Joanne Kennedy We Westerners like a challenge--but gardening in Wyoming might be too much of one for me. It's dry here, and the growing season is short. Every year spring seems to come earlier. My bulbs come up, my daffodils bloom, and then wham ! We get slammed with snow. Last year we got ten inches on May 25th. At least I've learned not to run out and buy bedding plants at the first sign of spring. It only took me a few years of tragedy to realize that you absolutely can't plant anything until the end of May. It's really tempting to break that rule when the skies are blue, the temperature is a balmy 75, and robins are frolicking in the back yard, but I've learned to resist temptation. You also have to resist the temptation to buy many of the plants that catch your eye at the garden center. Anything that needs moisture or humidity is out, and since the temperature can vary by forty degrees in a single day, you need fairly hardy varieties. Delicate plants...

by Joanne Kennedy When I was a kid, my sister and I used to hunt for four-leafed clovers in the grass. These elusive little good-luck charms never seemed to turn up when you were looking for them--but when you least expected it, you'd stumble across one by accident. That's how luck works. By definition, it's a happy accident of fate, and I always seem to stumble into good fortune when I least expect it. And while hard work, perseverence, and focus help determine our lives, it's often luck that has the most influence in leading us to our destiny. Here are four strokes of good luck that led me to the here and now: Finding my Place: I moved out West in 1992. At the time, I thought I was running away from home. In reality, I was running to home--to the place where I belonged, and the place that has defined me ever since. Finding my Hea rt: I met my husband by chance. I was running a bookstore; he was a customer. We definitely weren't looking for love, but after ...

The theme this month is "things that go bump in the night. That's easy , I thought. I'll just put up a scene where my hero and heroine "go bump." A nighttime love scene. But posting intimate moments online, without any context, for readers who haven't watched the romance develop, doesn't seem fair to the characters. So I decided to do a different kind of night scene. One that leads to bumping, but where no bumping actually takes place. All that goes bump in this scene is the hero and heroine's hearts. This is from Tall, Dark and Cowboy , which comes out November 1st. Lacey Bradford left home for a fresh start, bringing nothing along but a beat-up muscle car, an adventurous heart, and a really ugly dog. She ends up at Chase Caldwell's ranch - a place that's as foreign to her as another country. In this scene, she's left the ranch house to take a walk while Chase does chores. She sits down on the ground, crossing her legs yoga-style, and lo...

Changed? You bet I've changed. Twenty years ago, I lived on a farm in Pennsylvania. My roots ran so deep I couldn't imagine ever leaving. Then I moved to Wyoming. This week, I went back and visited my family and my old stomping grounds. It was a great visit, but today, on the last leg of the long trek back to my adopted state, I realized how much Wyoming has become my home. The East is beautiful, with its rolling hills and leafy forests. While I was there, I noticed a lot of things we don't have in Wyoming - old stone farmhouses, black and white dairy cows, fountains of flowers growing in naturally rich, dark soil. We don't have a big selection of fancy restaurants, either, and we definitely don't have anything like Wegman's gourmet grocery stores. But Wyoming has so many things I missed, even after a week. We have mountains - mountains with snow on top, even in August. We have sagebrush and antelope, and even buffalo dotting the hills along the interstate. (Y...

Yes, I'm ducking the flying rotten tomatoes. Summer is my least favorite season. Why? Two reasons: heat and humidity. I mean, I chose to go to Penn State because it was snowing the day I went there for a visit - April 29. I lived in East Halls and had to cross Parking Lot 80, aka The Tundra. You should have seen those snow piles when they plowed that big flat wind-whipped vast expanse of nothingness. (Sadly, I believe Parking Lot 80 no longer exists). So here we are in summer. Normally, my family goes to the shore every summer, but this year we're taking a pass on our annual vacation because we've planned a different, longer one. To the mountains. Where there's snow. Yep, we're headed to Colorado, South Dakota and Wyoming this year. I made this trip when I was 14 and LOVED it. Especially the pictures of us in our shorts and flip flops throwing snowballs at each other. I plan to do the same thing 31 years later with my own kids. We'll be stopping at RomCon in Den...

Our cat hates our travel trailer. Can't you tell? If the wide eyes and non-stop mewling during the night was not an adequate clue, his relentless, sneaky attempts to escape make it clear. If not for my daughter’s swift action in chasing him around the trailer, brave risk of abraded skin by throwing herself under the diesel pusher parked next to us, and firm grip to a furry tail, he would still be a permanent resident of Yellowstone Park. Or long since digested bear food. The rest of the family, however, loves taking our modest 27-foot trailer to parts unknown! In the patriotic aftermath of 9/11 we, like many others, freshly considered this wonderful land we are blessed to dwell in. It isn’t like we were spending our vacations in exotic locales across the globe, but after decades in California there really weren’t too many places in this excellent State left to explore. So, we decided to take the plunge. We purchased our trailer and planned our first big extravaganza for the summer ...

Today's the day--the release date for Cowboy Trouble, my first published novel. I'll be celebrating tonight with a launch party at our local Barnes & Noble, where I've worked for the past eight years. Selling my own book in my home-away-from-home bookstore has been amazing. When the book arrived and I opened the box--wow. I can't even begin to describe how it felt to see that handsome cowboy waiting for me! With the book's release, my characters--Luke, Libby, Cash, and Crazy Mike, among others--will finally be set loose on the world, along with all their attendant critters--Ivan, Penny, the Verminators, and Wild Thing the feral chicken. First, you'll meet Libby Brown, a big-city journalist who's fleeing a romance gone wrong. She's determined to live a solitary, self-sufficient life, so she moves to the most isolated area she can think of and literally buys the farm: thirty-five acres of sagebrush and a quaint clapboard homestead in Lackaduck, Wyomin...