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Keta Diablo: All is Calm...

Life is unpredictable . . .

Let's face it, never more than today do these words ring true. In 2008, the stock market crashed, the housing sector spiraled downward, unemployment skyrocketed and political corruption exploded. Our sense of security is a tenuous thing, never more so than today. That's why my message for 2009 to you is "All Is Calm." Our peace must come from within and efforts to improve the world we share must begin with each and every one of us.

Recently I had the great pleasure of viewing Peter Rothstein's play All Is Calm. If it comes to your city or town, I highly recommend you take the time to see it. The Christmas Truce of 1914 depicts events when almost a century ago Allied Forces and German soldiers on the Western Front laid down their arms for a Christmas Day Truce. Suddenly, a young German soldier stepped into the clearing and sang "Still Nacht" (Silent Night). What ensued was a night of music, brotherhood and peace. Among enemies no less.

For me, the play offered a message of hope and led me down a path of deep deliberation. What if the armies in every corner of our world surrendered their weapons and made a silent vow to seek peace and harmony? What if genocide and ethnic cleansing was eradicated? What if children in Darfur no longer went to bed hungry? The list of "what ifs" for me grew and grew.

Then shortly after I attended All Is Calm, Mumbai, India exploded from a terrorist attack. We had only to watch the scene unfold to see the suffering on the faces of the children and remember all over again our vulnerability. I couldn't help but think as I gazed upon this cherubic face that the only thing permanent in his life now is impermanence. And for that, my heart aches.

No, we can't control external events that threaten our safety and our security, but we can and should strive to bring a sense of All Is Calm to our own little worlds. Like the German soldier, we can, just for today, and maybe for tomorrow and the next day, put our fear and anger aside and choose love over hate, patience over intolerance, kindness over resentment.

That's my pledge for the New Year. I hope it will be yours too. Sending each and every one of you hearty blessings, wishes for success, and most of all peace.

May your mantra for 2009 be All Is Calm . . . .
Fondly, Keta Diablo

Keta writes erotica historical and fantasy. Visit her website to learn more.

Susan's Six: Six Things Susan Vaughan Loves About December

1. Well, of course, Christmas is coming. I love the holiday but not all the stress involved in the days running up to Christmas Day, which involves more cooking than this kitchen-challenged woman prefers.
2. Primal Obsession is ready for orders! The ebook has been released this month from The Wild Rose Press. The idea for Primal Obsession grew out of a six-day canoe trip the DH and I took a few years ago in northern Maine. In the three canoes were four other people, including a Maine Guide. He taught us the skills we needed for our excursion, like paddling techniques and navigating with a compass. We paddled ten or more miles a day to various campsites, where we slept in our tents and shared cooking duties. We used compasses to find our way in a "bushwhack" as in the book, and we did paddle white water, but not as difficult as Sam and Annie face in the book. Happily, we had no vengeful killer along for the ride. Here on the right is a picture of the dh and me in our canoe. I hope you'll check out the excerpt of Primal Obsession at my website on the Newest Release page.
3. E-books. I'm thrilled that Primal Obsession is available in more than one format, to reach a wider audience. E-book, what's that, you say? The printed book is in a pdf file that can be downloaded or ordered on a CD-Rom from the publisher's or a vendor's website. You can save it on your computer, PDA, or on a hand-held e-reader, such as the Sony or the Amazon Kindle. Best of all, you can change the font size to suit your eyesight comfort. If you're not into e-books, wit until March when Primal Obsession will be released again as a trade paperback (ISBN 1-60154-390-5) available everywhere online and in bookstores.
4. Christmas food. A friend here, the hostess supreme, has a cookie party. Everyone brings two dozen cookies, which we will share after refreshments--my friend's famous ice cream roll with fudge sauce. The cookies are all displayed on the breakfast bar, and we go around with a plate and select one from here and another from there--snickerdoodles, Swedish tea cookies, fudge, etc.--until we each have two dozen cookies to take home. The DH can't wait every year for the cookie party. And neither can I.
5. Christmas decorations. In Maine, people begin putting up wreaths and lights the day after Thanksgiving. Some people already have their trees decorated by December 1. I love seeing the twinkling white and colored lights on houses and public buildings. I love the carols, the Living Christmas Tree concert given at the Baptist Church here. And decorating our own tree and enjoying the finished product afterward over a glass of wine.
6. And did I say I love Christmas? This year we're doing presents a different way. So many people are hurting in this downturned economy that the Vaughan family decided to give our Christmas funds to the charity of our choice in other people's names. The dh and I chose The Heifer Project. They give an animal--a heifer, a sheep, chickens, bees, rabbits--to impoverished people around the world so they can make a living for themselves. Check it out.

Mallory Kane say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

And say hello to my holiday kitty, Tweedy. This is Tweedy's 16th Christmas. Isn't she pretty!

This year, my family is changing some of our Christmas traditions. This year is also the first Christmas since my mother died. Some of the changes are because she's no longer directing Christmas dinner, not that I don't wish she were!

For instance, we aren't going to get out the fine crystal glasses for Christmas this year. Almost every year one of them is chipped or broken. We decided the remaining glasses will be divided among the children and grandchildren. Mine is displayed in my china cabinet.

Each time I go by the cabinet and see that glass, I can see my mother's beautiful hands holding it up and saying. "Look how the Christmas lights shine through the crystal."

To me, that's much more meaningful than using it to drink iced tea.

Other changes are coincident with the current economy. We're not drawing names among the adults this year, for the first time in over 25 years. This was a tradition that may have worked back in our salad days, when it seemed to make sense as a way to save money by not giving gifts to every single person. But over the years it morphed and changed, and got more commercial, until we were essentially saying "Here's the catalog, here's the page and here's the item number. Order it and wrap it for me." ICK!!! How un-Christmas-like can you get?

This year we will buy gifts for the little ones, and have fun watching them. Then eat until we can't move! As my brother said, "Your presence is my present."

Whether we're enjoying long-cherished traditions, changing them, or making new ones, I think the important thing to remember is that this time of year is about love and family and peace.

My Christmas present to me this year is a December book from Harlequin Intrigue. High School Reunion goes on shelves on December 9, 2008. It's not a Christmas story, but it's definitely a story of hope, love, family, change, and since it's an Intrigue, even peace--eventually! You can find out more about it at my website

I love the cover. It looks like a fantasy or a dream to me, with her sparkling white dress and the 'disco ball' and all the balloons. The scene is right out of the book--my hero and heroine dancing at the high school reunion where they reconnect after ten years.

But I did not request the black and white balloons, and I've spent some time puzzling over what the art department may have had in mind when they used hundreds of them. No--the high school's colors weren't mentioned, so that's not it. The only thing I can imagine is that the black is supposed to be sinister and the white is supposed to represent innocence.

If any of you want to speculate on why black and white balloons at a high school reunion, please respond. I'd love to hear your theory.

Whether you're cooking, eating, shopping, visiting, or snuggling up with a good book... please be good to yourself this holiday season.

Happy holidays to you all!

Mallory Kane
Edgy, emotional,evocative romantic suspense 
Watch for the Black Hills Brotherhood in 2009    

Julie Miller says "Happy Holidays!"

In all my years as an author--and I just finished #36, so I've been doing this for a while--I've never written a Christmas story before. But I finally got that opportunity with this month's release, Kansas City Christmas. It's the fourth and final book in my bestselling Precinct: Brotherhood of the Badge miniseries for Harlequin Intrigue. I've always wanted to do a story set in Kansas City at Christmas time because it's such a beautiful city at that time of year--let me tell you, the folks down on the Plaza have known for decades about how to decorate up a fancy party for the holidays.

I'm sharing some pictures from the Plaza area, just south of downtown Kansas City. The J.C. Nichols Plaza was one of the very first shopping "mall" districts in the U.S., if not the first. It is designed with striking Mediterranean style architecture, and bears a resemblance to Paris, France with its many public fountains, bridges, walkways, sculptures and works of art. You'll find many nationally and internationally famous stores there, as well as some classy boutiques and specialty shops. Plus, it's a
Mecca for entertainment, playing home to theaters and a wide variety of restaurants from top notch elegance to eat with your fingers casual dining--including, imho, the best barbecue place on the planet!

While it's truly a beautiful city any time of the year, come the holidays, Kansas City does it up right. With well over a million lights, the Plaza is lit up every year on Thanksgiving evening, giving the place an ethereal holidy glow. Every rooftop and and building is lit up with a string of lights (that stay up year round--whew! maintenance is time-consuming enough--can you imagine that project of taking down and putting up that many lights every year?). The lights then are on every night throughout the holidays. Stores stay open late and, of course, you can enjoy the nightlife of entertainment, or take carriage rides (they even have a Cinderella pumpkin carriage for the most romantic of you). You can enjoy it simply by bundling up and walking the wide sidewalks and checking out the amazing store window displays, then step inside for a hot toddy or cup of cocoa. Yum.

So, like I said, Kansas City Christmas is my first Christmas themed novel of romantic suspense. And, because the Plaza and the lights are so much a part of what I associate with the season, I made a point of having my characters, Det. Edward Rochester Kincaid and M.E. Dr. Holly Masterson, stop down on the Plaza. Edward has a real thing against Christmas because of traumatic events in his life--he's a dark and tortured hero if you like the type. Holly, on the other hand, sees Christmas as a way to celebrate life and honor her family (she's endured some trauma, too). This isn't just a story about finally catching the bad guys and healing a wounded family, it's about discovering the power of love and the strength it sometimes takes to love again.

In my family, besides the Plaza, Christmas decorations are a big deal. My mother has a Santa Claus room, decorated for Christmas year round with just about every type of Santa and Christmas ornament--including some rare antiques and handmade ones from kids and grandkids. My hubby has a Star Trek tree. As long as we've been married, his November birthday has been easy to buy for--he wants whatever Star Trek ornament Hallmark is releasing that year. Now we've gotten so many space ships and Tribbles and captains, that we had to get him a tree of his own. Growing up, too, I was allergic to pines and other Christmas trees, so my dad built a Scandinavian cross-bar tree with hooks for all the ornaments. My mom and brothers and I decorated it with paint and ribbon, and over the years it has truly become a work of art. It stays up in the Santa Claus room year-round, too. It'd be sort of like taking down all those Plaza lights if we tried to change it.

So what do holiday decorations mean to you? Autumn colors at Thanksgiving? Lights at Hanukkah? Colorful presents under the tree? A special collection of ornaments? A neighborhood competition to see who can use the most wattage and electricity? A special town or neighborhood?

I hope you enjoy Kansas City Christmas and the rest of my Brotherhood of the Badge books from Harlequin. And I hope you have a safe and wonderful holiday season, decorated just the way you like it!

Best wishes,
Julie Miller

Coming soon:
Out of Control, Harlequin Blaze, April 2009

Christmas--in 3-Part Harmony- Justiss, Burrows and Brisbin

My Favorite Christmas Carol by Terri Brisbin

I tend to like the old traditional carols best. “Silent Night” sung during Midnight Mass always gives me the chills. “O Holy Night” does the same thing. I can even remember standing on stage, in the third row (because I was tall for my age), in my berry-red skirt and white blouse during the fifth grade Christmas play singing harmony in “O Holy Night” and just feeling the excitement and splendor of the Season.

I still love that carol, especially Josh Groban’s version of it, but. . . a little confession here….I also like the South Park version of it! Yes!! It’s terrible but I laugh all the way through it as Cartman tries to sing the right words and his ‘friends’ shock him when he doesn’t. I also like “A Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses, “Christmas Eve in Sarajevo”, “Wish Liszt” and “Wizards in Winter” by TransSiberian Orchestra. And pretty much anything on a Wyndham Hill Christmas collection, especially music by Nightnoise.

So, yes, I’m torn between traditional and modern. But one place and event when those two come together is in Walt Disney World at Christmastime. Every year, they present the “Candlelight Procession” in Epcot and it includes professional singers and musicians as well as high school and college choirs. The process onto the stage and are led through the story of the Nativity by a celebrity narrator and the show includes all the best traditional carols as well as a few modern ones, too. The most rousing song in the show is an old song called “Rejoice with Exceeding Great Joy” and it was made even better when I watched the sign language interpreter expressing the song in wonderful gestures and smiles.

If you want to take a peek, here’s a link to a video of it on YouTube. What’s your favorite Christmas or Holiday song? Traditional or modern?

No matter which, I hope you enjoy it as you celebrate this coming Holiday Season!

Terri Brisbin

Christmas--in 3-Part Harmony- Justiss, Burrows and Brisbin

Julia Justiss: Thoughts on a Carol

The theme of my Christmas story is miracles—the original title was “Merry’s Christmas Miracle”—though this refers not so much to supernatural happenings as to having something wondrous occur long past the time when one has given up all hope of it. Meredyth Wellingford, who lost her chance to wed when her fiancé was killed in India, believes it impossible to find again a love like the one she once knew. But as all true romantics know, miracles do happen—especially at Christmastime!

I have to admit, the real reason my favorite carol is my favorite is because it has beautiful harmony and a wonderful alto line. Having sung in choirs since I was six years old (and thus probably holding the world record for the number of “d”s sung in a lifetime—fellow altos, you know the note I mean) I was thrilled to discover the interwoven melodies in the old German carol, “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.”

Incidentally, the song just happens to feature miracles, beginning with a “floweret bright” blooming “amid the cold of winter.” (Yes, I’m a passionate gardener too.) Even non-gardeners know roses do not bloom in the snow, yet the lyricist has us believe that God’s love allowed the rose, Mary—a virgin no less, another miracle--to bear a midwinter child who would “from Sin and Death now save us/and share our every load.”

I find unison melodies boring, preferring the complexity of interwoven chords. Which probably explains why secondary characters are so important in my stories; I like my heroes and heroines to reveal themselves not just in relationship to each other, but by interacting with a range of people who add richness and depth to their character.

Love, human as well as divine, truly is a miracle that can help us bear all our burdens, illuminate our lives with joy and spur us to acts of unselfish heroism of which we would never have believed ourselves capable. May you find and cherish such miracles at Christmas and always!

Julia Justiss

Christmas--in 3-Part Harmony- Justiss, Burrows and Brisbin

Annie Burrows's Favourite Christmas Carol

One of the things I like best about Christmas is singing all the seasonal hymns of celebration that you just don’t get to hear at any other time of the year.

I love ones that evoke the weather, such as “In the Bleak Midwinter”, even though I suspect it is a highly inaccurate depiction of the nativity. Do they have snow in winter in Bethlehem?

I love the slightly bizarre tale of “Good King Wenceslas” and his hapless little page boy, being dragged out in all that snow to deliver food and wine to “yonder peasant”. At the church I used to go to when I was little, the congregation always used to split into parts, with the men taking the words of Wenceslas, and the ladies and children the little page boy.
But my all time favourite is “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!” John and Charles Wesley, who headed a great revival in England, made sure that they encapsulated the full gospel in the words of that hymn. I sometimes wonder why it is never sung at any other time of the year, but is, inexorably associated with Christmas time.

The tune itself is stirring, particularly when you get to the verse where you can have a go at singing the descant part. (In my case, to the detriment of anyone’s ears in the near vicinity.) And so it was, that when I was asked to write a story to go into a Christmas themed anthology, I found myself wandering round the house, singing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” with great gusto. Well, while everyone else was out, anyway, so that they could not complain.

And the line that particularly inspired me was, “God and sinners reconciled.” I soon found myself wanting to write a story about reconciliation, and second chances.

That, to me, is what is at the heart of what people truly celebrate at Christmas, be it in a cottage in Regency England, or now, in the glitzy twenty-first century.

Annie Burrows

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