One Book's 15 Year Journey

My new book El Patrón is finally available! I am so excited about this book. It has been a journey to see this book in print. I'm gonna "blab" for a minute about this book's journey, and then maybe you will understand why I refer to it as a journey.

I'm going waaaaayyyy back now. In 1991 I gave birth to my first son Alex. He was six weeks premature and had some health issues that dictated that I stay home with him and not work at the time. I was fresh out of college with a degree in journalism. I chose journalism as my major because my parents didn't think creative writing would be lucrative and since they were footing the tuition, I acquiesced. However, the bug to write fiction never stopped biting at me. So with my baby at home and the urge to write a book, I took a correspondence course through Writer's Digest (these were the days before I had a clue about the Internet). I finished that novel, and sent out submission to agents and actually had some good feedback but ultimately it was rejected. Two years pass and by then I had a rough and tumble toddler and a new baby on the way. I was now working at our family business, but I still had that need to write. What I would write, I didn't know.

Well as things would have it, some very interesting events took place in my life during that time. I won't divulge but let's just say I might have known someone who was married to someone who had a cousin who knew someone in the Mexican Mafia a.k.a the drug cartels. I had read The Godfather series and found the history, etc., of the Mafioso interesting--I didn't want to be involved with that lifestyle though, so I stopped knowing that person who was married to someone who had a cousin who knew someone in the Mexican Mafia a.k.a the drug cartels. But the idea of a book about them intrigued me. I did some research and I sat down with my then six month old baby either in my lap or in a swing next to me, while my two-year-old made a fiasco out of the house. I had just acquired my first laptop. With my baby at times in my lap, I hunted and pecked my way through the first draft of El Patrón. Then my life kind of bottomed out. I went through a divorce, I lost my home, I had to file a bk because I was left with a ton of debt I had been unaware of in my youthful naivete (that's a nice way of saying I was a pretty dumb twenty-something). I took a year off from writing and went back to work for my family.

But writing is a passion and once you have it, you want to write. You always come back to it. So, eventually I wrote another version and then another of this big book (450 typed pages). I had the fortune to attend the Maui Writer's Retreat and it was there that someone in the industry said, "Oh no. Organized Crime books and family sagas don't sell." Funny how The Sopranos were on a year later and we all know how unpopular that series was. Instead of focusing on Patrón, I wrote two thrillers, a children's book, and then Murder Uncorked, which was the first book I sold to a publisher. But the characters of El Patrón kept nagging at me. After putting out a few mysteries, I decided to take another crack at El Patrón. I revised it two more times and utilized my Yoda (my freelance editor Mike Sirota). This was three years ago. But then, more mystery book contracts came in and my focus was back on them. I have now written nine mysteries and after finishing up the latest one "A Toast to Murder," and then putting out "Happy Hour," I thought now might be the time to see if El Patrón will fly. I hope I'm right.

For those of you who are used to reading my comedic mysteries, be prepared that this book is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy different. I'm not a writer who only wants to write one type of book. I want to write good stories--stories that compel me, wake me up in the middle of the night yelling at me, "WRITE ME!" So, if you do decide to join me on this journey, just know what you are getting into--this is a saga, and there are some not so nice parts, and there are some steamy scenes (compliments of my dear friend and a wonderful writer Jessica Park, who is the go to girl when you need to ramp up a sex scene. Oh boy, talk about blushing! I can hear J.P. now--you're such a prude." Yeah I know). But on the flip side now that I've told you this book isn't all laughs and light, it is my favorite book out of thirteen of them. These characters have been screaming at me for 15 years now, and they wouldn't leave me alone. So, even if only a few of you here buy the book and read it, I'm good with it.

If you want to check out the book trailer from El Patrón, please visit my website at http://www.michelescott.com.

Cheers,
Michele

TWIST IN TIME

Spring is pretty subtle here at the beach in Southern California. It comes earlier than in other places in the country. Nights are still cool, sometimes as low as the high forties. But days begin to inch up to the upper sixties from the low sixties, and sometimes, like today in March, we even flirt with seventy. Spring is always a promise. That’s true even when the winters aren’t that harsh. You can feel the promise in the air and it’s exciting. We start… to expect change.

In TWIST IN TIME, it’s that electric expectation that begins to take hold of my hero and heroine. They don’t know what’s coming but something sure is, and it’s exciting and frightening and it starts feeling inevitable. It’s going to change them and their relationship with each other and their relationship with the world, forever.

I set TWIST IN TIME in March in San Francisco (near where I grew up, and always one of my favorite cities) unconsciously, but March is the perfect time. The promise of spring is faint. But the world starts whispering to you that everything is about to change.

Change is just what shy bookseller Lucy Rossano wants in her life. Her scientist father has passed on. She has her business dealing in rare books and a friend, Brad, a physicist at the Super Collider lab who knew her father and seems like a connection to him. But…something is missing, until a woman named Frankie (from TIME FOR ETERNITY) gives her a book by Leonardo DaVinci that describes his effort to build a time machine. The book says he was successful. That’s crazy. But when Brad confides that his top secret project at the lab aims to power a strange medieval machine whose purpose is a mystery, Lucy knows what that machine was designed to do. An unbelievable coincidence, right?

It feels inevitable to Lucy that she will use Leonardo’s machine and use it she does, to go back to a time when the world was full of promise and magic. She lands in the middle of a fierce Dark Age battle. When a warrior falls against her as she powers up the machine to escape, she finds herself saddled with a wounded Viking from 912 A.D. in modern day San Francisco. Worse, Brad and his shadowy government agency sponsors are now after the machine that only she can use, and her Viking, Galen Valgarssen. On the run, she and Galen must cross the language barrier and find a way to escape the relentless pursuit of those who would use the machine to change time for their personal gain. Is it just a coincidence that she feels an overwhelming attraction to the man she happened to bring back with her?

Here’s a little excerpt from A TWIST IN TIME:

“The lights in the boat’s cabin went out with a fizzle leaving only the clear, pale moonlight streaming in through the ports. Lucy couldn’t get her breath. She was hurtling toward something that had been growing inside her, around her. It felt like destiny. She could refuse it. She had a choice. But she was standing on a precipice and everything would soon be very wrong if she made the wrong choice right here, right now.

She felt Galen behind her. His physical presence overwhelmed the small space. She had to do something. She held herself still for one long moment more. Then her head moved of its own accord. She turned to look at Galen. He shook, alternately flushing and going dead pale in the moonlight. His gaze jerked to hers.

Conflagration. And she knew what she must do. It wasn’t what she’d thought.
She held out a hand. “Let’s go on deck.”

He looked alarmed, confused.

“You know it’s right.” She did. All would be well if they could but see the moon.
A taut, invisible line stretched between them. She saw him struggle. She smiled, hand still extended. He closed his eyes, took a breath.

“I fight no more,” he whispered, and took her hand.

She opened the hatch. They climbed to the deck, the dog wriggling out ahead of them. The moon was rising over the bay to the east. It had cleared the horizon, golden from the pollution in the air. It shone in eerie serenity. This moon had shone over Galen’s time too.

He came up behind her. “What month is it?” he whispered, his voice hoarse.

She shivered, only half from cold. “We call it March. Third month.”

“What day? What day?”

She had to think. “Twenty-first.” She held up fingers.

He rolled his head as though in pain. “Ostara’s day. Change of season.”

“The… the vernal equinox…”

“Ja. Ja. Day same long as night.” His voice held half wonder, half fear.

The beginning of spring. The day that signaled a change in the world as it quickened toward the plenty of summer. “Who… who is Ostara?” she asked.

He seemed most agitated. “Norse goddess of…” He went to Latin, “fecundity. Like Saxon Eostre,” he added. “Very mighty day.”

So powerful Christian priests borrowed it for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection to spread their faith among the pagans. Druids celebrated the first day of spring, too, didn’t they? But the moon wasn’t always full exactly on the 20th or 21st of March. That must be pretty rare….

She turned to him under the full moon of the vernal equinox and knew in her bones and her belly that something special was supposed to happen here, something bigger than her, even bigger her and Galen together. The full moon, the tides, the earth’s axis that rotated through space, all those could be explained. But in their confluence, they became something more, a promise of some kind. She ached for completion and she knew what would complete her. The whole world was telling her.
God, she sounded like a loon, even to herself. The universe was not talking to her. Next she’d start believing in astrology and she’d open up a shop that sold crystals and incense.

But Galen was here, big and real in the cold March air of the vernal equinox under a full moon. This was real. And what they were about to do together was right.”

So here we are in March, with the faint promise of spring in the air as the world turns toward summer. It seems a gigantic coincidence that TWIST OF TIME was released in March.

Or maybe not.

I will be giving away a signed copy of Twist in Time and a box of Godiva Chocolate to someone who comments on this blog.

http://www.susansquires.com/

I Hate Daylight Savings Time

I have been driving around, running errands and trying to figure out what to blog about today that would seem worth the trouble of someone going out of their way to read it. And then I remembered what today was. March 15. Do you know that we have Shakespeare to thank for not having to file our annual income tax today, but a month from now (Bear with me. My graduate degree is in Shakespeare and I don’t get to use it very often)? Originally, separating you from your money took place on March 15th of the year but apparently the Internal Revenue Service (love that last word) was sensitive way back then and took offense at all the “Beware the Ides of March” jokes (courtesy of Julius Caesar) that came its way so the date was changed to April 15th. Sadly, the only trauma attached to that date is that it is the deadline for filing for the previous year without a penalty.

Forgive me but I’m afraid I’m feeling a bit grumpy this morning (or actually, this afternoon). I feel like this every year when I have an hour stolen out of a schedule that already requires a shoehorn in order to squeeze anything additional into it. My day begins at 4 when I hit the day running (people to feed and get out the door, a dog to run after, loosely disguised as “taking the dog for a walk”) and usually doesn’t stop until ten or eleven that evening. I am not one of those bright-eyed and bushy-tailed morning people, but I have resigned myself to getting up at an hour when even God is asleep. That would be the aforementioned 4 A.M. Getting up at 3 because the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. cannot get themselves to do away with something that came into being in modern times in order to “conserve coal in wartime” is more than just a bit disconcerting, it’s downright annoying. It is also enough to make me groggily contemplate moving to Arizona because Daylight Savings Time doesn’t exist in Arizona (possibly because they might have a “No Stupidity Zone” there, I’m not sure) However, I am so pale (I have seven little men following me wherever I go) I am fairly certain that my skin would instantly turn into leather if I were exposed to the Arizona sun for more than ninety seconds. So I am doomed to being groggy for more than six months a year (the Powers That Be in their infinite wisdom have extended Daylight Savings Time on both ends, beginning it sooner and ending it later) until some kind legislator with pull decides that perhaps the public at large has better things to do with their time than attempting to reprogram their DVRs (VCRs in some cases)twice a year and just end this “Spring forward, Fall back” nonsense once and for all. Hey, it could happen. I’m an optimist and still believe in Santa Claus.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go over to my mother-in-law’s and try to explain to an 85 year old woman why her “magical” VCR didn’t tape her favorite Soap Opera. Pray for me.

Comment on this blog and you could win a copy of The Cavanaugh Code!

Marie Ferrarella

http://www.marieferrarella.com/

"VIVIANNE, YOU'RE WITH ME."

Justin stalked from the bridge without waiting to see if she followed. Ever since he and Vivianne had gone back to the engine room, he’d been riled.

His skin prickled. No matter how much he tried to repress the need, he was close to losing control again.

“You think us being together’s a . . . good . . . idea?” Viviane’s tone was soft and raw. She might as well have caressed his flesh.

He gritted his teeth. “It’s . . . happening . . . again.”

“No.” It is not.” Vivianne spoke as if she was in agony.

It took every ounce of his control not to rip off her clothing and take her right there in the hallway. He swallowed hard. “I’ll be in the captain’s quarters.”

Not in his entire life had lust ever pounded him like this. They were in danger. But it didn’t matter. They might die tomorrow. It didn’t matter. The crew would know exactly what they were up to. It didn’t matter.

He had to have her. Now.

The excerpt above is from JORDAN, a futuristic romance and some people call this kind of book space opera. I call it futuristic romance and I love to write this kind of story because it combines two of my favorite subjects: Romance and Science Fiction. Obviously lots of folks who enjoyed Avatar, Independence Day and the Star Wars sagas agree. I believe the appeal of this genre is the element of what if? What if we really could travel into space? What will we find out there and who will we wish to spend our lives with in this new universe?

To me one of the most exciting times in life is when we find the right person for us. The person. The one we want to share our future with. That person is not always the one we imagined. For example in JORDAN, the hero of this story, has already lived for centuries. Jordan doesn’t want to fall in love. He has no intention of falling in love . . . and yet. Falling in love is not always a choice. Sometimes, it just happens. And that’s what is so much fun about writing these kinds of books. We can find love anywhere—even when we aren’t looking.

And sometimes shared danger can spark the old human hormones, creating that special chemistry that might not have ignited under different circumstances. In Jordan, the heroine is a self-made woman who builds spaceships. Under ordinary circumstances she wouldn’t fall for one of her employees, but when the two of them are thrown together under the most dire of circumstances, they must unite to succeed—for the sake of everyone on Earth. Working together, placing their lives in one another’s hands, creates a level of trust . . . a trust that’s oh so necessary for them to succeed.

As for the science fiction elements, as a child I watched Star Trek and read extensively in the genre. So combining the elements of love and space exploration is a natural. Tying those elements together with Arthurian legend was a bonus. Yes, it taxed the imagination. And let’s be real, this isn’t the kind of fiction that’s ever going to happen. But, the Pendragon Legacy series of LUCAN, RION and JORDAN entertained me for months while I wrote them. And I hope they will entertain you as you read them. For a free excerpt and a few video go to http://www.susankearney.com/.

PS. On my interview page, you can see me in space.

Around the Bend

I love road trips. Not super duper long ones, like the one my characters take from Massachusetts to California in AROUND THE BEND, but ones that are doable in a day. My husband and I have taken dozens of road trips, both to visit my family in Massachusetts, and to take our kids to different destinations. As of today, our kids have been to 19 states.

When they were little, we started out by keeping our road trips to destinations within a six-hour radius. We visited every zoo, aquarium and children’s museum in that circle of distance, then, as the kids got older and interested in a wider variety of destinations, we went beyond the new rhino exhibit. We’ve driven to the East Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and are talking about a trip to the Grand Canyon this summer.

The great thing about road trips, I think, is the time you spend with people. Some of my best conversations with my kids have come in the car, when everyone else was asleep and it was just me and one kid, talking quietly to fill the darkness. When I was dating my husband, it was road trips that brought us together—we drove from Massachusetts to Indiana, and all those hours on the road gave us time to focus on just each other.

My mother and I never made a cross-country journey like Hilary and Rosemary do, but we did spend days and days in her hospital room, just her and I, talking quietly to fill the silence, to move past the illness slowly claiming her life. Of all my books, AROUND THE BEND is the most personal, the closest to events I underwent in my own life. I told those same jokes to my mother in her hospital room, made the same silly comments about magazine articles we were reading—and in the process developed an amazing relationship with her and created incredible memories that linger still, four years after her death.

AROUND THE BEND is like a road trip—it’s funny and touching and sad, all at once. There are lots of laughs in the book, but as the characters get closer to each other, they ease into the truth that has been standing between them like a wall. It’s also women’s fiction, which allowed me to explore the complexity of relationships outside a romantic one. It was a blast to write, and also very cathartic—a lot like driving from the middle of the country to the coast. You learn a lot along the way, and each destination creates a new memory.

Tell me—have you ever had a memorable road trip? Do you like road trips? Or are you more a planes, trains and boats kind of person? I’ll choose one commenter from the blog to receive a Shirley Jump tote bag (all the better to carry all those books in when you are on the road!).

http://www.shirleyjump.com/

Idea Overflow

There are certain times in an author’s life that are most feared. For some authors it’s the release day of a book. For others it’s when they’re stuck on a scene. For me, it’s the moment I sit down in front of my computer with a deadline looming (such as an upcoming blog post) and face a blank screen. I am not fearful by nature and it’s not because I don’t know what to write. I am fearful because I have too many ideas and I don’t know which one to settle on. That is when the looming question raises its ugly head: What should I write about?

Do I talk about my latest release WORDS OF SEDUCTION and how I was inspired by the book Peyton Place? I could delve into how the premise of secrets in a small town intrigued me into creating a character that is forced to return to a hometown she’d left in disgrace. No. I wrote something similar to that already.

Do I talk about my unofficial trilogy “Ladies of the Pen”? Would people be interested in the fact that WORDS OF SEDUCTION was initially pitched as part of a trilogy that was reduced to two books and then later extended again to three books? No. That story sounds far too complicated.

I know! What if I tried to explain the title change of the second book in the series? I could talk about how “Moonlight Masquerade” became PAGES OF PASSION (October 26, 2010). Or how WORDS OF SEDUCTION was initially “A Town of Secrets” and “Suzanne’s Seduction” before its present title. Nope. Maybe another time.

Okay enough about my current or upcoming release. What if I wrote about the joys and struggles of being a writer? I could always write about surviving rejection (I have gotten plenty of those). But that topic may be too much of a downer.

What if I wrote about book covers? How I presently have no control over them, but thankfully I am pleased with what the art department recently came up with. I could create a narrative of how the publisher was able to take my manuscript and turn it into a finished product. No. I said I wouldn’t talk about my latest release anymore, didn’t I?

I could write a motivational piece for aspiring authors advising them on how to achieve their goals. I could share how I create goals that only depend on me. For example: I’ve never made ‘get published’ a goal. Instead ‘send out five short stories’ would be a goal. Or I’d make a goal to ‘write a good manuscript’ not ‘get a great review.’ I am always saddened when I meet aspiring authors who list goals such as ‘get an agent’ or ‘get accepted by XYZ publisher’ because those goals are totally out of ones control and if they remain unachieved can lead to heartache.

Come to think of it…I could write about five things that aspiring authors should know…Or I could…ahem…now you see the problem: Ideas. Lots and lots of ideas, but settling on one can be as difficult as trying to catch a dragonfly. But then again, that’s the fun of being a writer…

So, what do you do when you feel overwhelmed? I’ll give away an autographed copy of my latest release WORDS OF SEDUCTION to a random commenter.

http://www.daragirard.com

JILTED BRIDES

I got the idea for my new book MAD, BAD AND BLONDE (in bookstores now!) from the opening lines – “It was the perfect day for a wedding. Too bad the groom didn’t show up.”

I heard those lines very clearly in my head. That doesn’t happen all the time, especially for the opening of a book. But right away I knew that my heroine Faith West was a children’s librarian and a jilted bride.
As a former librarian myself, I love writing about librarians. Faith has a special place in her heart for Jane Austen, which was also fun to work with.

Next comes the hero. I knew that the jerk who dumps her in a text message was not the hero. I also know that I love writing about Marines and former Marines. Okay, the hero Caine Hunter had to be a Marine. So here’s what I came up with:

JILTED AT THE ALTAR!

Librarian Faith West is going on her Italian honeymoon solo, but she’s not staying that way for long. Does her sexy rebound man have ulterior motives? When they both return to Chicago, Faith has her hands full keeping former Force Recon Marine Caine Hunter in his place…and out of her bed!

Faith is a book addict like me. I’ve included a photo of just part of my many many many keeper shelves. It’s handy to have a comfy chair nearby to read in. I have this recurring dream where I discover another room in my house, somehow it’s off the garage, and I say “Finally, my own library!”

But getting back to jilted brides, what is it about them that appeals to us? That is the ultimate betrayal and it gives me a chance to give my heroine the real happily-ever-after that she deserves.

MAD, BAD AND BLONDE has already received great reviews, including a highly coveted Starred review from “Booklist,” which describes it as “a rare treat.” Library Journal’s Xpress online review describes it as “a perfect choice.”

So tell me, do you like books with brides on the cover? Tell me why and you may win a signed copy of my previous book SMART GIRLS THINK TWICE.

For more info about me visit my Facebook pg at Facebook.com/cathielinz or my website cathielinz.com for contest info to win a free book or read excerpts from my books. I’m also on Twitter.

I will be giving away a copy of SMART GIRLS THINK TWICE to someone who comments!