Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

by Carolyn Brown Okay, folks you've all listened to me moan and groan and whine like a two year old in the cereal aisle at the grocery store the past two months about the heat in Oklahoma. But I now understand the problem with the whole record breaking summer which I intend to share with y'all if you will keep it a secret. I'm afraid the people will drag me outside the house, kick me off the curb and stone me to death if they find out this record-breaking summer is my fault. H.E.A.T. stands for Happy Ever After Temperatures in this story. Once upon a time a romance author started a book about a cowboy named Trace Coleman and a sassy Irish lass named Gemma O'Donnell. She typed in the first sentence and it became evident from page one that Trace was a damn hot cowboy and Gemma had a temper just as hot as his dreamy brown eyes. And the temperature in Oklahoma shot up from the low nineties to over 100 degrees. Then the author's fingers typed faster. Gemma and Trac...

What is it about the cover of a book that makes you pick it up? For me it's the mixture of hot, sexy and dangerous! I'm not going to lie...a cover with a drool worthy man on the front definitely grabs my attention. However, he can't just be standing there all by his lonesome. Nope. To stand out in the sea of books, that cover has to have more than just a gorgeous set of abs. In fact, it doesn't even need a naked chest to be hot. It has to tell me, as the reader, what kind of a story I am getting. For example, I love the covers for Lori Handeland's Nighcreature novels. They are sexy, edgy and have an air of mystery but the best part is that they actually match the story inside. Her novel Marked by the Moon is an excellent example of a cover that didn't have a naked chest but was still sexy, mysterious and intriguing. (Also an outstanding book that you should definitely pick up!) It makes me crazy when I read a book that doesn't match it's...

Editors focus on ‘em and readers love ‘em, but hot scenes are not my favorite parts of a book to write. Oh, now, you ask, how can I not enjoy the portrayal of passion between two enthusiastically consenting adults? It’s mighty hard work, that’s how. Every scene in the book is supposed to advance plot, character or both—there’s hard work right there. Every scene is supposed to include tension at least, and outright conflict if the author can manage it—how does one have conflict while consummating 150 pages of erotic tension? Neither character is saying no to anything on the steamy pages—except to holding back. Throw in the fact that the hot scenes are about experiences practically every reader has some familiarity with—unlike stopping a runaway team of horses, catching the Hail Mary pass, or say, popping out of a cake—and the going just gets tougher. Now add in the consideration that these are the scenes that will appear in some...

by Tamara Hogan I'm a complete hoor for reality shows showcasing the creative process:  Project Runway and Top Chef in all their incarnations. No Reservations . And summertime is THE time for the hottest competitive reality show of them all:  So You Think You Can Dance, which aired its season finale last night. After 60 performances (!) contemporary dancer Melanie Moore was named the winner. For those of you who don't watch, the country's top aspiring dancers audition for the show, with 10 guys and 10 girls being selected to compete for the title of "America's Favorite Dancer." I admit that most seasons I don't particularly care who wins. I don't even vote once they open the judging up to viewers. I tune in twice a week, through the humid dog days of summer, to watch talented (hardbodied, flexible) dancers challenge  themselves with new and unfamilar genres, and work wit...

Please welcome Sourcebooks Casablanca author Tawna Fenske , whose debut novel , Making Waves , is in stores this month! So it looks like I’m one of the new kids here at Sourcebooks Casablanca. I’m thrilled to be greeted warmly instead of shoved in my locker with a “kick me” sign on my back. I love the idea of a launch party, even if I don’t get to wear the little cone-shaped hat or play pin the tail on the naked sailor. I commemorated the occasion by having cake and champagne for breakfast, something that didn’t sit well with my boss. But I’m feeling celebratory anyway, which is sort of how I want people to feel when they read my books – kind of a cross between maniacal laughter and that tingly feeling you get in the places described on the dog-eared pages of your junior high health text. Did I mention I write romantic comedy? My debut novel, Making Waves , hit shelves earlier this month. In a nutshell, it’s the story of a guy who gets kicked to th...

Our Casablanca blog theme this month is hot and I certainly didn't have to think for more than a second on what I would post! Here's the cover for my second "Elite Force" novel to be released in December - HOT ZONE. Wowsa, is this cover smokin' or what?! Kudos to the art department on delivering a winner cover to showcase my book. HOT ZONE by Catherine Mann "Elite Force" book 2 December 2011 Days full of danger… For Pararescueman Master Sergeant Hugh Franco, it’s all about saving other people’s lives. Then he moves on. But when he pulls beautiful Amelia Bailey and her adopted nephew from the rubble of a catastrophic earthquake, he finds himself entangled in their lives in ways he could never have imagined… And desire-filled nights… Amelia’s trip to the Bahamas to help with an international adoption has been no vacation, but the hardest part is yet to come. As Amelia and Hugh are pulled unawares into a deadly smuggling scheme, simmer...

By Anita Clenney If August gets hotter than July, I might have to move north. It's been a scorcher here in Virginia, and while I don't mind the heat, I hate to sweat. Between the sheets and between the pages is a different thing. Every reader has their preference for sex scenes, from mild to hot, and everything in between. For myself, I don't don't like flowery sex scenes, and I don't like graphic sex scenes. It's a little hard to describe exactly how I do write them, so I thought I'd post Faelan and Bree's first "encounter of the sexual kind" in Awaken the Highland Warrior. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bree stared at the closed door. What was he doing in there? Cleaning? He’d agreed to take bathroom duty, since she didn’t have fields to be plowed and cows to be milked. A woman couldn’t argue with that. He could be trying to avoid the sparks flying between them. The look he’d given her in the bathroom had darn near incinerated her. Bree put her ear against t...

UPDATE: ARC winners of TEMPTED announced: Shiloh Tolbert & Lisa at Once Upon a Chapter Winners, please email me at elisabeth (at) elisabethnaughton (dot) com with your snail mail addy. Congrats to the winners and thanks to all who played along! Anyone who has read my books knows I tend to write on the steamy side. My scenes have made my husband blush several times, my neighbors wonder just what happens in our house and my mother refuse to read any book that has the word "Bed" in the title. Personally, I blame the atmosphere. You see, my husband works for a pharmaceutical company and used to sell Levitra (an ED drug) and my neighbor conducted at home sex toy parties. I ask you...how can a romance author NOT write hot when she's surrounded by that? Seriously though, I've read a lot of romance novels over the years and don't think I write any "hotter" than a lot of other authors. My books tend to have only 2-3 love scenes per book, but I do ...

This month I am on my blog tour, so today I'll just be sharing my new contest, and the rest of my blog tour schedule below. Hope to see you around the blogosphere!~Kathryne That's right! I appreciate my readers! This is the last contest for THE LADY OF THE STORM, and it's easy to enter! Here are the details: To celebrate the release of THE LADY OF THE STORM, I am offering a gorgeous genuine 12 carat sky blue topaz pendant necklace, which represents the magical power of sea and sky my heroine half-breed inherited from her elven lord father. See above for a photo and description of this magical prize. This second contest is all about keeping in touch. Just sign up for my newsletter at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KathryneKennedy/ , and you're entered to win! You will receive emails from me around once a month, and these can include book release announcements, sneak peeks into upcoming books, opportunities to win free copies of my books, and ...