Okay, let’s admit it. Most of the super stud heroes in romances don’t exist.  At least not in the flesh, so to speak. Maybe there are a few around, but they’re rare. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of true-life heroes, and lots of great guys. But come on, are you dating or married to a guy like, say . . . Roark? Or Ranger?  Or one of Nalini Singh’s ultra-alpha Changelings, or Rebecca York’s hot werewolves (the human version, anyway)? If you are, I’d guess you’re in the minority. Most of us have snagged great, loving guys, but my wonderful husband doesn’t quite fit the above category. I wouldn’t trade him for anything, and to be honest, if I fell into a relationship with one of the above, I’d probably panic. I wouldn’t know what to do—well, okay, I’d have an idea or two, and I’d certainly give it a go. But, still.

I think that’s part of the allure of romance books, don’t you? The “what if I met a guy like that?” I’ve always tried to write books where I identified with the heroine and fell in love with the hero. And maybe had a few hot flashes along the way.  I think most of us prefer alpha heroes, and we all have our fantasies. So for fun, I started thinking of the lines I’d like to hear from my fantasy alpha male:

I love giving foot rubs. It’s what I do to relax.

Sorry I got a little carried away and tore your shirt off. You can wear mine. I insist.

Since you cooked this great dinner, I’ll do the dishes. Then afterwards, we’ll get to the dessert.

Let’s pull out that romance book you brought along and read it together. Then we can pick out some scenes for reenactment.

Sweetheart, you’re going to have to return those condoms. I need extra large.

So, how about you? Got a favorite line you’d like to hear if your fantasy SSH appeared in your life?

~ Catherine

As writers, we try our best to write protagonists with admirable qualities. Characters our readers will fall in love with. Who they won’t want to say goodbye to when the book finally comes to an end. Sometimes these characters spring entirely from the mind, but many times they are inspired by real life individuals. Someone we’ve known, or perhaps a public figure or celebrity we’ve learned about from afar.

Has anyone read THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN by bestselling author Mitch Albom? It’s a book where the main character dies, and afterward, his life is explained to him by five people who at one time or another, crossed his path. Some are well known to him, and some are complete strangers, but each of them altered or changed the course of his life forever. 

Who is someone who has influenced your life, inspired your thoughts, or incurred your obsessive interest? Someone who, if given the chance, you’d like to meet? Your response can be "deep", completely frivolous, or anywhere in between. The person can be alive or deceased. 

Through my answer, I’ll reveal what a big history nerd I am. We can blame my American Oratory prof for this one …

If I had to choose one person I’d love to meet, it would be: Abraham Lincoln.

Last night, we went to see THE QUEEN, with Helen Mirren.  She was fantastic.  The night before, we’d watched the final two episodes of PRIME SUSPECT.  So it was startling to watch her play two such radically different parts.  She’s clearly one of the great actors of our age. 

Have you seen THE QUEEN?  It’s about Queen Elizabeth and her family, coping with the days immediately after Princess Diana’s death.  The contrasts in the movie are startling.  We see the queen living in luxurious surroundings with servants prepared to do anything she requires.  I was particularly taken with her gardens, since I love gardens.  There’s a scene where she comes in from outside to take a call from the prime minister "in the kitchen."  The kitchen is the size of a large restaurant kitchen.  While she picks up the phone, the staff of ten or fifteen clears out to give her privacy.

Yet, even with all her privileges, she’s boxed in.  She’s tried to keep her response to Diana’s death low-key.  Finally, she’s forced to take Tony Blair’s advice and react the way the people want her to react.  It’s a very difficult period for her.  And she’s still angry with Blair months later.  When they meet, she tells him that the people will eventually turn on him, and it will happen suddenly.  It made me wonder if they’d added that line late in the production process, after he got into political trouble over the war in Iraq.

Also startling is the contrast between Blair’s life and the queen’s.  She lives in luxury.  We see him in a crowded kitchen, with his wife and three children, sitting around a small table.  It’s so unglamorous and ordinary.  Not the way you’d think the leader of the British government would live. 

At the same time, even in her luxurious surroundings, the queen wants to drive her own SUV around her estate and also pass out the bowls at a family picnic.

There’s not a lot of action in the movie.  It’s a character study.  And it’s startling to listen to the bad advice Elizabeth is getting from her family.  If you’re interested in character, I’d highly recommend it.  And there are amusing little throwaway touches–like the ninety-something-year-old queen mother drinking a double martini while she watches Elizabeth’s TV speech about Diana.

Have you seen the movie?  If so, what do you think?

Rebecca

So, I decided to take a couple weeks off writing, but the other night I couldn’t resist  playing around on the internet a bit. On a whim, I googled my name (something I’ll admit I do from time to time…okay…alot lol) and guess what popped up? A link to preorder Come and Get Me! on Amazon.com…with my new cover!!!!! My editor is on vacation and I haven’t recieved cover flats yet, so I don’t know for certain if this is the final version, but I’m guessing it is if they put it up in Amazon.

So what do you think? I love the colors…so bright and sunny, perfect for a June release.

Come and Get Me is my first Berkley Heat book…my first single title in print. I’m sooooooooooooo excited about it’s impending release. Here’s the blurb:

Sexual freedom … exotic destinations …

Who ever said you can’t have a honeymoon before and after your wedding?

The thought of her impending marriage is giving Sadie panic attacks. Hives. Nightmares. She loves her fiancé, Dylan, but the concept of happily ever after is suffocating her. She isn’t ready to face the future, and worse, the sex could be better.

Panicking, she packs her bags in the middle of the night, and dares her sexually repressed lover to come and get her.

Dylan will be damned if he’s going to lose Sadie so easily. Leaving behind his inhibitions, he pursues her, a sexually hungry and desperate man prepared to do anything to seduce his woman, once and for all.

And so the game begins …

Now doesn’t that sound like fun?! LOL. I hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving and didn’t gain too much weight stuffing themselves with stuffing.:)

Hugs,

Alyssa

I’m having a blog party starting today - lots of guest authors (including some Berkley Babes) and lots of giveaways - so come on over and join in!!

My Blog: www.nalinisingh.blogspot.com 

I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving holiday. We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here in England, but I never turn down the chance to join in a celebration!  So, to spin the fun out a bit longer, I’m going to run a giveaway today.
 
I’d like to give thanks for my writing career, and all the wonderful people I’ve met along the way, including the Berkley Babes here. Friendship across the miles means such a lot.
 
Leave me a message in the comments and you’ll have a chance to win a copy of SUGAR AND SPICE, an anthology of erotic short stories published in 1997. This is where I started out! My first paid publication is in this book, which is also the very first Black Lace short story anthology “by women for women.” The book is long since out of print and hard to come by these days. This is my last spare copy! Help me celebrate 10 years of writing by leaving me a message, and have your chance to win.
 
I’ll pick a winner at 10pm GMT time, 5pm EST.

UPDATE: Many thanks for all your messages and your interest in the book. I wish I could give you all a copy! I got my Real Life Hero to pick a number between 1 and  11. Congratulations to number 2, Tammy G, who wins the book. Mail me: saskiawalker @ gmail . com (with no gaps) with your postal address. Thanks again, everyone!

This is an unusual Thanksgiving for me. I’m up in my office blogging while my family is downstairs preparing Thanksgiving dinner. For years, I did all the cooking, but when I’m on deadline, my wonderful family takes over. I’m particularly thankful for that. I worked for 20 hours yesterday polishing SEX AND THE PSYCHIC WITCH, due in stores in August 2007, and due on my editor’s desk on December 1st. Yikes. But I’m thankful for that too.

There are so many things I’m thankful for, but this is surely the first:  The day after Christmas last year, we nearly lost my husband. I’m supremely thankful that he’s downstairs, directing traffic and pretending he’s doing all the cooking. I’m thankful for my entire, incredible family, especially our little Kelsey and Travis, ages 1 and 3. How boring life must have been without them.

This past spring, my first ever case of pneumonia became a pretty good indication that I couldn’t keep working a full time day job, and writing nights when I should have been sleeping, so in April, I became I full time writer. Very thankful for that and shortly after for a contract to write my Triplet Witch Trilogy—Psychic witches with attitude spell identical triplet trouble in spikes!

THE SCOT, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, third book in my Accidental Witch Trilogy, will hit stores in two weeks and pre-orders are brisk. I’m thankful for my first PW review: "…sassy dialogue, rich sexual tension and plenty of laughs make this an immensely satisfying return to Blair’s world of witchcraft." Publishers Weekly

In January, I became a National Bestseller. Talk about thankful! And for your reception of MY FAVORITE WITCH, the book that hit bestseller lists. I’m thankful for my legendary editor and agent, Cindy Hwang at Berkley, and Nancy Yost of the Lowenstein Yost Agency. My own dynamic duo.

My thanksgiving list wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t thank you, my loyal readers, family and friends. I love your notes of encouragement. I know I have a lot to learn, and meanwhile I hope to entertain, take you away from life’s problems for a while, give you something to laugh at, and a happily ever after to smile about.

Happy Reading. Happy Thanksgiving. A Joyous Holiday Season to you all, whatever holiday you celebrate. Peace! Bright Blessings! Merry Merry! Annette

I admit it. I’m a slob. I do like neatness, don’t get me wrong, but wow do I have stacks of paper everywhere! My office looks like a bomb exploded, my kitchen sink is full just now, and I have a pile of laundry that’s threatening to erupt. But when it comes to certain things, I’m am A-N-A-L. Is it possible for a disorganized person to be overly organized in certain areas?

My books, for example. I have close to 1000 books, most of which I haven’t even gotten to read yet, and they are my pride and joy. They have to be organized just right - though the method of that organization varies. Sometimes, I separate the genres, sometimes I organize by author. Once (blush) I even organized them by copyright. When my bookshelves are a mess, I feel like my whole world is in chaos. Same with DVDS and the like. They have to be put back where they’re meant to be, but my empty diet Dr. Pepper can could sit on my desk for days. I’m also picky about my bed. It has to be made within moments of slipping out of it. Otherwise, I don’t look forward to climbing back into it that night. When I do thoroughly clean my house from top to bottom, it takes only one misplaced shoe to make me throw my hands in the air and say, forget it. I’d rather have a messy house than a spotless one where one thing is out of place. Not sure why.

I also tend to have a split personality when it comes to clothes. I spend most of my day in my pj’s. It’s a perk of this job. No makeup. Socks, comfy pants and a big ole shirt. But I daydream about getting dressed in the morning, looking my best while I pound away at the keys. It never happens. It’s a bad sign when you put on mascara, jeans, and (gasp!) shoes, and your children ask why you’re all dressed up! I’d love to have a wardrobe of sophisticated clothing, or a closet full of the clothes worn by Jennifer Love Hewitt in The Ghost Whisperer. She dresses so romanticly antiquish. So feminine. I’m none of those things. But I would like to be. When I do get dressed, it’s always jeans. Maybe a nice blouse, but ALWAYS jeans.

So how do you know what kind of a person you are when it comes to fashion? If you’re a tomboy at heart, is it unnatural to dress in a way that opposes that stereotype? Can a tomboy comfortably wear dresses daily? Can a natural-born messy person be comfortable in a spotless home? Because I’m pretty sure a neat freak would be edgy in a messy one. And, can you train yourself to be something completely different than you are?

Just curious. New Year’s around the corner after all. If I can change, that would be a great time to pretend I will!

       I’m guest-blogging today for Cleo Coyle, who is inundated with obligations this moment… good luck with everything, Cleo!

     And… Happy Thanksgiving to you all! (In a couple of days.)

     But I won’t be partaking this Thursday, as I’m Canadian, and we had our Thanksgiving feast October 9^th, more than a month ago.  It seems so long ago now!

     I sometimes wonder if Americans see any difference between citizens of the two countries?  I think it’s natural that Canadians, as citizens of the smaller (in population) and more dependent (the US is by far our largest trading partner) of the two countries, think about this more, and reflect on the things that make us different and similar.  We take a lot of American history in school, and I must say, I don’t often have too much trouble with American capital cities on Jeopardy. (What is Bismarck, North Dakota, Alex.)

     This American Thanksgiving I will say a big ‘thank you’ that our two countries are such good friends, and despite squabbles over the years, like fractious siblings we get along much more often than we quarrel.  We may not always think alike, our paths may diverge, but there will always be a powerful bond of affection, I hope, and that lingering preference one has for family over all others.

     That, at least, is one Canadian’s perspective.  But still, I admit to being curious… do Americans ever notice a difference, say when you’re reading fiction by or about Canadians? We are so immersed in American culture, I don’t think the differences would be readily obvious, but then again, I’m not sure of that.  Also, do you ever wonder while reading if the author is American or not?  I suppose the same could be asked of readers from other countries; from an external point of view, have you ever noticed anomalies that resulted from a writer being unfamiliar with the country in which the story is set?

     Just a random wondering.

      Oh, and the title reference for this blog entry?  One thing some Canadians are also in tune with is our British roots.  (or French roots for those in Quebec and many other parts of Canada; the melding of the two is what makes us unique, though not always cohesive)  The title of my blog today is a play on the British farce, No Sex, Please, We’re British.   

I was reading one of my keeper books the other day - Wildest Hearts by Jayne Ann Krentz, when I realized I have a real weakness for her brand of Renaissance men. You know, the very smart (sometimes even nerdy) guys who can get physical when it counts. These are tough men but they can also be scholars, drink green tea and meditate. Wow!

I also adore Roarke from the JD Robb books. So cool, so dangerous, so bad. And very, very smart. I guess I like my romance heroes smart and strong. How about you? Who’s your favorite hero and why do you like him?