Happy Halloween from NovelTalk

Ann Roth: Sisters- Good or Bad, We're Stuck With Them

My women's fiction novel, My Sisters, is out the first week of November, so I'm focused on sisters. There are so many aspects to the relationship between sisters. Over the next few weeks I'll be blogging around the 'Net about some of them. (You'll find a list of blog dates and links below.)

Sisters intrigue me, and not just because I am one. There are so many complexities to the relationship. Face it, we're born into the same family, offspring of the same mother and father. We can be as different as day and night, see the world from completely opposite angles, walk divergent paths. We might not be the best of friends, or even speak to each other. Yet our family connection links us together, especially during family crises. That old adage, "Blood is thicker than water?" It's real.

It certainly holds true for Margaret, Rose and Quincy, the three heroines in My Sisters. Talk about different paths and personalities! They rarely see or contact each other. And yet, when disaster strikes... I'm not going to spoil the story by saying anything more.

What about you? Do you have a sister? Is the relationship close, or not so good? I'll start. My sister and I--things could be better between us. (Still, we're much closer than Margaret, Rose and Quincy are at the start of My Sisters). But under the surface we love each other. Knowing that comforts and sustains us both. If God forbid, tragedy strikes, you can bet I'll be reaching for the phone and calling her post haste.

Looking forward to hearing about your sister(s), and thanks for stopping by!

For more blogs on sisters, check out the following blogs and dates:
Nov 4 Nov 6 Nov 7 Nov 11 Nov 12

Visit Ann's website

Pamela Ford: What makes a soulmate?

A few days ago, the morning radio DJs were talking about soulmates. I soon gathered that the wife of one DJ (and mother of his three children) recently told him that he wasn't her soulmate. Ouch. As far as I could tell, it was because her definition of soulmate was different than his; she felt people could be soulmates with someone who wasn't a romantic interest.

That was news to me. I always thought soulmates were people whose souls were perfectly matched to one another, each other's second half, so to speak. Looking for clarification, I went to Wikipedia and read:
"Soulmate is a term sometimes used to designate someone with whom one has a feeling of deep and natural affinity, friendship, love, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality and/or compatibility. A related concept is that of the twin soul, which is though to be the ultimate soulmate, the one and only other half of one's soul."

Not that Wikipedia is the be-all and end-all of definitions, but the "or" in the first sentence makes it look like one's soulmate can be just about anyone – not simply a love interest. I'm struggling with that. In my mind, soulmates are supposed to have a romantic connection.

As a romance writer, my heroines always find their soulmates in the men they come to love. My current release, The Wedding Heiress (Harlequin Superromance, October '08) is about Delaney McBride, an upwardly mobile career woman who doesn't believe in happily ever after. But when she is forced to take over her great-aunt's wedding planning business, she finds true love (and her soulmate) waiting for her, along with a good dose of mayhem!

To read an excerpt, stop by my website . But, before you click away, tell me what you think about soulmates. Do you believe in them? Do you agree with Wikipedia's definition? Have you found your soulmate? Do tell!

Pamela Ford

Diane Gaston talks about Scandalizing the Ton

What would you do if the paparazzi were hounding you?

The last couple of years have thrust the paparazzi onto the front page again with their incessant hounding of celebrities like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Anna Nicole Smith. Even my fav actor, Gerard Butler, has been in the news lately for allegedly punching a paparazzi in the face. So, what would you do if the paparazzi were hounding you?

Scandalizing The Ton, my October 2008 release from Harlequin Historical, was inspired by this question. What would it be like for a proper Regency lady to be hounded by an 1800s version of the paparazzi?

Scandalizing the Ton tells the story of Lydia, Lady Wexin, whose husband's scandalous death has left her impoverished and at the mercy of the gossip-mongering press. They camp out on her doorstep and are whipped into a frenzy of speculation when they discover she is pregnant. Who is the father? One man knows. Adrian Pomroy, the Viscount Cavanley. But how can the once betrayed Lydia trust her baby's future and her own to the ton's foremost rake?

The Regency period (England 1810 to 1821, the time of Byron, Jane Austen, and the war with Napoleon, when George III went mad and his son was declared Prince Regent) was also a time when the news media loved to fuel their readers' love of gossip. The celebrities of the time were mostly members of the aristocracy and the convention at the time was to use initials instead of names. The Duchess of Devonshire (popular in the late 1700s and the subject of the film The Duchess) became "the Duchess of D—," Mrs. Fitzherbert (the Regent's secret, unlawful wife) became Mrs. F—tzh—t. Everyone knew who the initials represented.

This didn't entirely protect the press from charges of libel, however. The Hunt brothers, editors of The Examiner, went to prison because they wrote scathing criticisms of the Prince Regent, but Theodore Hook, editor of The John Bull, got away with blatant lies—about the Regent's enemies, that is. Like some of today's tabloids, truth wasn't an important element of the news stories, as you will see in Scandalizing the Ton.

The Regency even had its version of YouTube (see my book trailer on YouTube). Print shops did a brisk business selling caricatures of the beau monde. Caricaturists such as Gillray and Rowlandson depicted scandalous acts in satirical splendor.

Lydia and Adrian fall victim to the caricaturists as well as the Regency's version of the tabloid press. Can they rise above them and find their happy ending? Leave a comment and I'll select one of you at random to win a copy of Scandalizing the Ton.

What do you think of today's paparazzi? 'Fess up. Do you like to read about celebrities? What do you think it would be like to be pursued by paparazzi?

Scandalizing the Ton is on sale in bookstores through October and will remain available online afterwards, but don't delay. Get your copy now. There are easy order

links on my website.

Diana Gaston

Susan Vaughan: The Glamorous Life of a Writer – Not!

I was revising the first chapter of a new project. The opening scene needed to be more dynamic, to show not just tell the danger facing the characters. So I decided to take them out of an office and put them in a vehicle where the bad guys could go after them. Yes, I decided to do a chase scene.

Setting the scene in an office meant I could describe the setting any way I wanted. Not true for the chase scene. A car chase through Bethesda, MD, and onto the Washington Beltway meant research. A map helped but didn't give me a visual. I used to live in the area but long enough ago that I knew things have changed.

I asked on my various email listservs if anyone lived in that area who could help me. A few takers, but only people who used to live there. I needed fresh eyes, not memories. I needed Google Earth. So, since I have a very sloooww dial-up Internet connection, I took my trusty laptop to the local library, where I can connect with wireless. Should be a cinch, right?

Wrong. The library was closed. The staff was setting up outside for the big BookFair the next day. However the librarian said I could connect at the picnic table. Hooray, all was not lost.

Wrong again. The sun on the laptop screen faded out the images. But there was shade on the library's back steps. My spirits climbed a little but I was beginning to have doubts.

I settled myself on the steps with the computer on my lap. Voila, I connected with the wireless and was even able to access and download Google Earth. Then drops of rain fell on the laptop. Yup, the skies opened.

Closing the laptop lid, I fled to the backseat of my SUV. Hooray, the wireless connection still worked! I played with Google Earth a bit, and typed in Bethesda, MD. The screen flew to my target. I moved the mouse, and whoosh, the screen flew up and around the globe to Brazil. What was up with that, I asked myself. No clue. So I tried again. Same result. Brazil. Cursing technology and my limited knowledge, I went home.

I told my husband my ills but he just shrugged. "Honey," he said, "all you can see on that stretch of the Beltway is the sound barrier walls." Walls? I squeaked. "Yeah, the fences or cement walls they put up to shield the neighborhoods from traffic noise."

Why didn't I think to ask my husband before?

Anyway, the scene is done and I'm forging ahead. Oh, and Google Earth? Forget that. I'll go to a primary source, a human being.

Susan Vaughan

Primal Obsession
E-book Dec. 2008
print March 2009
(The Wild Rose Press)

Breaking All the Rules & Deadly Memories
(Silhouette)Still available at Barnes & Noble.com

Susan's Website. Susan's Blog

Karen Fox: Late Bloomer...

The minute I heard the title for Witch High, the story for "Late Bloomer" jumped into my head. Memories of those high school days came flooding back far more easily than I expected. Of course, I was one of those weirdos who actually liked school. I got good grades and participated in many extra-curricular activities. I actually stayed one semester more than I had to because I was having so much fun (and I wanted to graduate with my class).

Yep, that weird.

But that doesn't mean I didn't experience some of the same high school horrors that many of us did--the unrequited love for that guy sitting behind me in choir, the terminal shyness that made me blush every time a boy even talked to me, the agony of not going to the dance, the fear that I wouldn't have the answer when the teacher called on me.

My heroine in "Late Bloomer" experiences some of that and more. In a school specifically for educating witches on how to use their talents, she has no magickal ability. Sort of like being the only one in class with a horn growing out of your head. Naturally, she's picked on. She doesn't fit in and doesn't think she ever will. But she perseveres and makes friends and learns that sometimes the best way to fit in is to be yourself.Gee, wish I 'd known that decades ago.

What stories do you have to tell from high school? Your favorite moment? Your worst? Comment here until the end of October. We'll pick the one we like best and award a copy of Witch High, autographed by myself, Deb Dixon and Pam McCutcheon, to the winner.

Karen Fox. Visit her website.

Witchy Words of...er...Wisdom from Pamela Luzier

Menopause sucks. They tell you about the hot flashes, night sweats, and mood swings, but they never tell you about the truly horrible part of menopause: noun loss. Ever since I started through "the change," I've been losing my nouns. I'll be talking away, using verbs, articles, adjectives and adverbs with ease, then I'll come upon a noun and be totally stumped. Especially proper nouns. Names? Ha! Forget it. And what's that small black thing in my front yard the postman stuffs with bills and magazines?
Not a clue. I know exactly what it is, but can't for the life of me figure out what it's called.

When I told my doctor about the problem, she laughed. She said a lot of women go through menopause and realize they're having a problem with their memory, but only a writer would identify the part of speech we lose. She promises me it's not dementia, not a sign of incipient Alzheimer's. No, it's simply menopause. My friends laughed, too, until it began happening to them as well. Who knew hormones could mess up your brain so much?

Wait. Hormones screwing with my brain? Oh, yeah. I've been there before...I forgot about puberty. Well, I didn't actually forget. I remember it very clearly (no nouns involved, you see). So, when Denise Little asked me to write a fantasy short story for the Witch High anthology, about a special high school that catered to witches, I said yes. Who doesn't remember high school and the whole gamut of emotions that go along with that?

In my story, "Chemistry 101," fire witch Kenina Bailey is gearing up her courage to ask her chemistry lab partner to the Sadie Hawkins dance—he's a total hottie, even for a water witch. But when a blaze breaks out in the lab, the water witches accuse her and call for her expulsion. How can she clear her name and find a date for the dance?

Luckily, my noun loss problem isn't visible to my readers. If I have a problem remembering one, I can always come back later to fill it in and no one is the wiser. But make me feel better, will ya? Tell me it happens to you, too. If it doesn't, I'm not sure I want to know.

While I'm waiting for your comments, I'll take a break and see if I have anything to drink in the...uh, oh crap, you know--that big white thing in the kitchen that keeps food cold....

Pamela Luzier -- Visit Pam's website

Debra Dixon: Learning how to say "Nookay..."

It will suprise none of my friends that I'm up at midnight or that I have to be at the airport tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m.. Neither will it surprise them that I have at least two more hours of work to do before I can go to sleep. (That would be two more hours AFTER writing this blog, which will be the last fun thing I do until my head finds the pillow.)

Sleeping is something I do very well, but not nearly often enough lately. (Who are we kidding? I haven't slept since 1993.) I thought I was supposed to stop burning the candle at both ends once I became a "grown up." I'm supposed to know better. Well, maybe the problem is that I'm supposed to "no" better. I suck at "No."In fact my sucking at the word "no" is responsible for my writing "Coyote Run", a Young Adult story for the anthology WITCH HIGH.

Picture the scene: a writer's conference, a room full of editors, a need to make chit-chat. I say, "Hey, someone told me about the anthology you're doing. WITCH HIGH sounds fabulous."

The editor says, "I have room. Would you like to write something for me?"

I say, "Nookay."

Doh! It's the extra letters in "no" that get me every time! In this case though I was thrilled to have over committed myself. In research the YA market, I found fabulous books and authors. Any reader will tell you that finding a whole herd of new authors is akin to hitting the lottery. I literally had to force myself to stop reading and write my darned story, "Coyote Run."

On the day we meet my young water witch she’s just finding out she is officially the last of her class without a familiar. Worse, if your familiar hasn’t bonded with you by the time you’re seventeen, it’s not going to happen. In two weeks she’ll be turning seventeen.

And so her misery and the schemes to find a familiar begin. Little does she know she’s about to have a much bigger familiar problem that will make NOT having a familiar seem like a piece of cake. Toss in a mysterious young man from Ireland, the emotional scars she carries from her mother’s suicide when she was younger, a new stepmother, one of the darkest familiars of the craft, and you have "Coyote Run."

I hope you enjoy! And maybe even discover some fabulous new authors.

Visit Debra's website or blog with her at Riding with the Top Down.

Introducing--Parker Blue

Parker Blue asks--

Who would you have killed in print?

My young adult urban fantasy, Bite Me, is out this month from Bell Bridge Books. In it, eighteen-year-old Valentine Shapiro got a raw deal in the parent lottery. Her father was part incubus demon, and her mother's never forgiven her for that. Thrown out of the house by her mother, Val does the only thing that seems to make any sense—she takes aim at the town vampires, figuring a stake a day keeps the demon at bay. Soon enough, she finds herself deep in the underbelly of the city, discovering the secrets of the Demon Underground with the help of her faithful hellhound, Fang, and fighting to save those she loves. Whether they love her back or not.

When I was writing Bite Me, I was asked to contribute something to a charity auction on eBay benefiting a fellow author. So, I offered to have someone killed by a vampire in print--the person "killed" to be selected by the winner of the auction. I envisioned people wanting to see their boss bloodied, their mother-in-law murdered, or their ex exsanguinated. Instead, the winner of the auction-- Lorena Kott of Louisiana--surprised me by wanting to see herself fanged to death.

I didn't ask why. I assume it was because she wanted to see her name in print. At least I hope that's the reason. Anything else might be just a tad...disturbing. So, Lorena got her wish and my heroine, Val, trips over Lorena's dead body--literally--on the River Walk in San Antonio. Because Lorena chose to have herself "killed," I gave her a relatively easy death-by-vampire in Chapter Twelve.

But the experience made me wonder. If someone else had won the auction, would they have chosen to see themselves killed as well? Or, would they have chosen to get revenge by killing a boss, a co-worker, a teacher, an ex? Maybe they'd have used it as a practical joke, to shock a friend or lover by seeing their death in print. Or maybe they'd have some totally weird, awesome, or creepy idea I haven't thought of.

If you had won the auction, who would you have chosen, and why? Post your answer here and whoever writes the most interesting comment (as determined by my entirely biased opinion, of course) by November 15 will win a copy of Bite Me signed by moi. Let the madness begin....

Welcome to the new NovelTalkBlog

Welcome to the all new NovelTalkBlog. Every week, we will feature two of our authors and they'll tell you what's on their mind, what they're writing or what's just coming out on the bookshelf.

The blog debuts in late October but until then, let us introduce you to our featured authors for October: Parker Blue and Maureen McKade.

Parker's debut book, Bite Me, is about Val Shapiro, just your ordinary, part-demon, teenaged vampire hunter with a Texas drawl. And a pet hellhound named Fang. Watch the book trailer to learn more about this first book in the new Demon Underground series.

Maureen gives us another of her signature taut romantic suspenses, Where There's Fire. Shattered by her mother’s death—and the fact that the killer got off scot-free—Detective Shon Alexander is prepared to take the law into her own hands. Nothing will get in her way. Not her badge, not her big arson investigation, and definitely not the mysterious witness who seems to see right through her.