GUEST GIRLFRIEND: Please Redeem Me by Debra Salonen

So what happens when you have a character show up in the first book of your 4-part series who is so annoying and unlikeable reviewers call him "a complete and utter PITA"? (Yes, I had to look it up, too. P I T A = pain in the arse...as my mother would have said.)

Well...naturally, you make him your next HERO, of course.

In Cowgirl Come Home, my hero's brother, Austen Zabrinski, shows up repeatedly. He's...um...difficult. He has attitude. Tell me if this sounds like a hero to you?

She only had a vague recollection of Paul's older brother since he left for college before she and Paul started dating. But everybody in Marietta knew Austen.

His name had been in the Courier every week since he was MVP in at least three sports. All the girls wanted to date him, although he never had a steady that Bailey could remember. He gave the class speech at graduation. She knew that for a fact because she'd been selected as one of the four freshman girls to pass out programs at the door.

She'd listened closely because he had the audacity to buck the system, showing up with his longish hair artfully tousled, a movie-star goatee and bare ankles, hinting that he was wearing shorts under his gown.

At the time, Bailey had been impressed.

Now, not so much. She'd met more than her share of promoters, lawyers and wealthy stockmen over the years. And one thing she knew for certain was money did not automatically signify class.

More nervous than she had been when she left the house, she walked slowly and deliberately, trying not to limp.

Show no weakness. She couldn't remember if the adage applied to wild animals and lawyers, or just lawyers.

Thank goodness I called in an order. She could pick it up and run. No need to bring up the ridiculous idea of going on a date. No harm, no foul.

She went straight to the cash register, not looking right or left. "Bailey Jenkins. To-go," she told the young woman behind the till.

The girl--about sixteen working her first summer job, Bailey guessed--spun about and dashed to the kitchen window, where a clothesline of white orders were strung.

"Ironically appropriate, don't you agree? A To-Go order. Your modus operandi, no?"

She turned, her purse clutched to her belly--bling side out, as if the glitter might magically ward off the attack she sensed coming. "I beg your pardon?"

Austen had changed since the cocky kid at the school podium. More than the expensive suit and cover-model haircut, his style shouted, "Warning: rich, influential, angry man with agenda. Look out."

He leaned in. Not so his words were kept between them. No. In fact, he spoke loudly, with succinct clarity so the entire jury of her peers could hear. "It's not my pardon you need to beg, Bailey. It's my brother's."

I know. Right? A complete and utter jerk. So, what on earth would possess an author to pick such an unlikable character to make her next hero?

I wish I could tell you. I honestly don't know. But I will say I found Austen intriguing. I wanted to know why he was so caustic, so judgmental. I loved his brother, Paul, so much I figured if Paul was so great surely there was some good, something redeemable in Austen.

And I learned a long time ago, while working with my first editor, that sometimes you don't have any choice about who your characters choose to love.

My third Harlequin Superromance is called Back In Kansas.

This is a spin-off from a book titled His Daddy's Eyes. The hero, Bo, is a recovering alcoholic. And in the course of writing His Daddy's Eyes, he proved to be a very annoying character because he constantly wanted to be on center stage. I hate to admit this to non-writers, but there came a time when I said out loud, "If you want to be a hero, you can be a hero in the next book. Now, back off and be a good secondary character so I can finish this book."

As strange as that sounds, he did. So, when I was working on my next proposal, I talked to my editor about who I thought would make a good heroine for Bo. She hesitated a moment and said, "But, obviously he's in love with Claudie."

It was my turn to hesitate a moment or three. "But Claudie is a reformed prostitute," I reminded her.

My editor replied, nonchalantly, "I'm sure our readers are evolved enough to know that not every character comes to a story with an unblemished past."

The voice in my head is freaking out. "There's blemished and then there's prostitute!"

To my editor, of course, I said, "Okay. Let's give that a try. "

What came out of that collaboration was a story that scared me to death to write but connected powerfully with readers. And from that point on, I no longer was afraid of unredeemable characters.

The fact is every one of us has our not-so-heroic moments. We're human. Maybe that's what makes the difficult ones--real and imagined--easy to relate to.

Austen Zabrinski is very human. When we meet him in Cowgirl Come Home, he's going through an extremely tough time (off screen). He's at a crossroads in his life and he's questioning whether everything he's done to that point was for naught. We don't know any of this until he shows up on my new heroine's doorstep needing help. Luckily, as fate would have it, she is the perfect person to help him figure out exactly where he needs to be and who he really is.

I love it when that happens. Don't you?

Tell me, as a reader, do you like it when a character surprises you? Can you recall any characters that grew on you? I'll choose a random winner from all who reply to win a $10 gift certificate from Amazon, PLUS a free, digital copy of Cowgirl Come Home or the 12-author bundle Summer Escape.

PS: the title of this blog made me think of Englebert Humperdink's 1985 hit Please Release Me. Here's the link in case you need a laugh. http://youtu.be/6S9ecXWCBCc I'm still giggling.

Nobody's Cowboy will be out August 29!

From award-winning journalist to nationally bestselling author with 26 published novels for Harlequin's Superromance and American lines, Debra Salonen brings humor and heart to her stories. She was named Romantic Times Reviewer's Career Achievement "Series Storyteller of the Year" in 2006. Her popular Indie release, Are We There Yet, has been called "laugh-out-loud funny, poignant and just plain fabulous!" Cowgirl Come Home, her newest release for Tule Publishing, is a full-length novel set in Montana.

What every writer needs to know

by Maria Geraci

As we wind down on our current cycle topic, The corn maze of novel writing, I have to laugh. Mostly at myself, because its what I seem to to be doing a lot of lately. Talk about irony. You see, I'm one of those pantsers who has desperately been trying to reinvent herself into a plotter. For those of you who don't know author speak, I'm trying to become someone who outlines her novel. Someone who actually knows what's going to happen next. Yes, one of those lovely people.

You see, I have a dream. That dream includes writing a novel in sequential order with every little thing perfectly and neatly tied up the first time around.

Sorry to say, my bubble or rather my dream has been busted. As they say in north Florida, it ain't gonna happen. Not for me anyway. And believe me I've tried.

But the writing process isn't the same for everyone. Nor should it be. I know that and I now accept that. At the same time, I have to learn to write smarter. Not harder. I have to minimize the amount of revisions I do because I simply have to produce faster.

After years of trying to figure it out, I think I have. At least, for now. Because if I know anything, it's that with each novel I write I learn something different, which ultimately alters my process. Hopefully for the better each time.

What's my current process? It's a stripped down version of the barest bones character grid. Not a bio. Not really. Bios take too much time and frankly, they kind of bore of me. I like to discover my characters as I write them, but I also know there are certain things I need to know before I type out Chapter One. Otherwise, I'm in for a world of long and painful rewrites. And what I have to know is what my characters want. What they really want. And why they think they want it. And what it is that they really long for, but are too afraid to go after. If I know that, then I know them. Or at least as much as I need to know to start out my novel. And if know what my protagonist is really afraid of, then I know what my dark moment will look like. And guess what? I'm half-way there. Which is a lot better than where I was before.

How about you? What do you need to know before you begin writing that first sentence?

Maria Geraci writes fun, romantic women's fiction, Her fourth novel, A GIRL LIKE YOU was a 2013 RITA ® Finalist . She is currently working on a contemporary romance trilogy scheduled for release in spring of 2015. You can connect with her by visiting www.mariageraci.com

White Girl Gone Tribal

I want to go tribal, pound the earth with hands wide open, my butt high in the air.   I like to get funky.  I like to feel the earth under my feet and in my hands.  

I want my white-boy son to dance with abandon.  (So far, so good… When he was In Utero, I played hip-hop--Nelly and Salt n' Pepa, that kinda thing, no classical music for him.) 

Music and writing:  both require the participant to say, ‘To hell with inhibitions.  I came here to shake my ass!  I came to represent and show you what I got.’  Both require the participant to be loose and wild.  Both require us to dig deep.  Don’t reign things in until the revision stage or until the band has stopped playing. 

Music always plays a part in my writing. Mambo, Cha-Cha, classical, Beatles, Bowie, Stevie, there’s  no telling.  “Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head…” (The Smiths) in Above Us Only Sky (Simon and Schuster, 2015).  I love to dance.  I love to be swept up in rhythms, words and drums.

You can tell a lot about a person by how they dance.  Ditto with how they write.  My fourth novel, currently in progress, takes place partly in Cuba so I am studying Caribbean culture and rhythms.  My dear friend at Book Riot, Rebecca Schinsky, recommended THE LAND OF LOVE AND DROWNING by Tiphanie Yanique as a new and relevant novel I’d enjoy.  It takes place in the Virgin Islands as they are passed from Dutch to American hands.

Well, I am the kind of girl, dancer, and writer, who likes to pay homage to my compadres.  With that in mind, if you enjoy mythic tales of native islanders, those mixed-blood inhabitants of islands who lost their mixed roots, sand and hearts to American tourism, this is a must-read for you.   The story, incredibly and credibly dark and mythic, nearly makes you question if incest is such a bad thing!  As Madison Smart Belle writes in The Boston Globe, “Yanique has borrowed a few pieces of furniture from the Southern Gothic attic. In place of Faulkner’s preoccupation with miscegenation (sheer nonsense in Yanique’s fictional world), there is incest... But is it always a bad thing? The love of half-siblings … begets Youme, whose clubfoot ... and whose proud beauty becomes a totem for the islanders’ struggle to take back their own. Small islands can be incestuous places, and incest may stand for a certain way the mind has to fertilize — and fortify — itself. This novel builds its best effects rather slowly, but in the end Yanique succeeds in evoking the panorama of the Virgin Islands in a voice all her own.”

So, if you’re looking for a book of dark myths and legends, the kind of book where you can feel the water in your veins and the sand under your fingernails, I highly recommend The Land of Love

and Drowning.  It is a unique and beautifully written debut novel.  One of the main characters, Eeona, carries a silver jewel.  I will never forget this diamond.  Yanique writes with the same wild abandon her characters display.  I have great admiration for her talent.

So, here's to getting funky, to writing and dancing equally with abandon.  I'm so white, I imagine my ancestors were bad-ass Celtic priestesses who knew how to conjure all manner of magic with their beats.

Michele Young-Stone is the author of The Handbook for Lightning StrikeSurvivors (Crown, 2010) and the forthcoming Above Us Only Sky (Simon and Schuster, 2015).  She is currently working on a fourth novel.

Michele loves to write and dance.  Go figure.  

A Paperback Birthday means Prizes for you!

BREAKING NEWS!

THE WRONG GIRL wins the DAPHNE for Best Mystery/Suspense!

           (You know what I mean..)

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Do you still read paperbacks?

If the answer is yes, keep reading—I have an irresistible offer for you.

If the answer is no, keep reading. I will try to convince you. And then I will have an irresistible offer for you!

Paperbacks. Their demise is a topic of discussion throughout the publishing world—will people give up the cheaper sometimes-flimsy paper-intensive mass market paperbacks in favor of ecologically-sound, lighter and paper-saving ebooks?

Well, interesting, huh? I have at least three rooms in my house-- well, actually four. Ah, five. Yeah, five--that have bookshelves in them,and I can tell you the paperback shelves are sometimes double-shelved. You know, a row in the back and a row in the front.

Do you do that? I mean, it’s kind of more storage than display, right? If someone asks—do you have, say, LORD OF THE FLIES? THE FIRM? THE HOBBIT? SILAS MARNER? WITNESS FOR THE PROSCECUTION? You’d say, oh sure. I have those! Well, great, but where? Can you find them?

I fear I could not find them. But I cannot give them up.

And yes, and yes, I continue to buy mass market paperbacks. They are perfect for the beach, right? If they get sand between the pages, or a few blotches of sunscreen smudge the especially smudgeable print, well, you don’t really care, right? And in a pinch, you MIGHT dog-ear a page, right? Come on, you MIGHT.

They are great on planes, and in hotel rooms, and when you are finished, you can leave them behind as a special gift to a housekeeper or the next guest. Or tuck them into the seatback pocket for the flight attendant—they love to read!

They are a staple in beach and vacation homes, of course. I love to walk into a summer home or a bed and breakfast, or a lovely inn, and amidst the fragrance of salt air and mildewy curtains and coconoutty sunscreen, and come upon an overflowing shelf of paperbacks so happily readthat the bindings are sprung and the pages are thick with the damp air.

You know what I mean? They don’t even close anymore? And you know someone had a wonderful time. They are full of good energy.

This weekend, we were in Tanglewood, and in the inn where we stayed, we found a book just like that—it was Ken Follett’s KEY TO REBECCA, and I bet Jonathan is about the millionth person to read that particular copy. Some other happy vacationer finished it, and left it behind for the next happy group. I love that.

(I left behind the paperback of THE OTHER WOMAN. You never know who might read it, right? What if Steven Spielberg is the room’s next occupant? Ah HA.)

So I think summertime is the perfect paperback time. And that is why I am so thrilled that today is the paperback birth-month for THE WRONG GIRL.
 

THE WRONG GIRL had the extraordinary honor of winning both this year’s Agatha for Best Contemporary Novel, and the Daphne for Best Mystery/Suspense! It’s also an Anthony nominee.

So to celebrate this paperback birthday: two irresistible offers.

First: if you send me your proof of purchase of the paperback of THE WRONG GIRL, you’ll be entered in a drawing to win A Kindle Paperwhite, a Nook Glowlight or a $120 gift certificate to the bookstore of your choice!

Just email me through my website at http://www.HankPhillippiRyan.com or at hryan@comcast.net

(See below for the fine print.)

Second! Tell us in the comments how you feel about paperbacks…and one lucky commenter will win the paperback of the Mary Higgins Clark award-winning THE OTHER WOMAN!

Happy Paperback Birthday to THE WRONG GIRL!  (You know what I mean....) 

************************************ 

Contest rules: enter as often as you like—one receipt per entry. Three winners will be drawn at random, and winners can choose their prize. Contest ends August 15, 2014, and winners will be notified on August 16. US and Canada only, please.

Grow Big Dreams

This is a wall hanging (paint on a wood canvas) that
my good friends Sarah, Karen & Joyce gave to me last
week. I love it!

by Marilyn Brant

Last month, a longstanding writing dream of mine finally came true, and the outpouring of cheers and support from fellow authors, reviewers, book bloggers, and readers was absolutely amazing to me. Also, in celebration, some of the dearest people in my life (my nearby friends and family) surprised me with treats to mark the special occasion and, really, just to show me how much they care.

The gifts themselves were lovely -- and I've included pictures of some of them in this post -- but the biggest present was the fact that all of these wonderful people, who'd shared this milestone with me, knew how long and hard I'd worked toward this dream...and they'd been there from the beginning.

My son, now fifteen, doesn't even remember a time before I was a writer. I've been at it for fourteen years of his life, and he's tolerated sharing my attention with his "electronic sibling" (i.e., my laptop) ever since babyhood. When he was eight, the manuscript that eventually became my debut novel was up for RWA's Golden Heart Award, and he gave me his "lucky quarter" from his coin collection to take with me to Dallas for the conference/award ceremony. I think he squealed louder than I did when I told him over the phone that According to Jane had won.

My son made me a "Celebration Candy
Cake" -- complete with M&Ms, Milk
Duds, and Reese's Pieces on top -- a
chocolate lover's fantasy dessert.

My high-school-teaching husband, who'd married me over twenty years ago and thought I'd always be a teacher, too, didn't skip a beat in encouraging me to completely change career paths and follow my passion for fiction, if that was where my heart was... In fact, he was the one who'd insisted I go to my first local romance-writer meeting in Chicago, and he urged me to take a leap of faith and attend the 2003 RWA National Conference in NYC, just so I could find out for sure if this was really the journey I wanted to take. He's read almost every manuscript I've ever written -- over a dozen of them now, the poor guy -- and, as someone with a master's degree in English Lit who'd once been a professional proofreader, he even volunteered his excellent proofing skills for many of my stories. Yes, I know he's awesome.

And my wonderful girlfriends who live in town with me -- Sarah, Joyce, and Karen -- have been there to celebrate everything from my first publishing contract (over six years ago) to every local book signing and library presentation to various book club visits and a ton of unusual events in between. Sometimes this even involved taking overnight trips across state lines. They are, in a word, remarkable, and I was so damn lucky to meet them a decade ago.

Flowers my husband brought home for me,
right after I told him the exciting news.

It's one thing to have a big dream -- and mine was to finally hit the New York Times Best-Seller List -- but to have people in your life who are willing to share each step in your crazy writing adventure, celebrate with you when things are going well, and listen to you weep in your hazelnut coffee when the challenges seem to outweigh the delights...that's priceless. Dreaming big dreams may be an individual thing, but achieving big dreams, well, that takes a village. Sometimes, a metropolis.

So, my heartfelt appreciation goes out to every person -- both in the writing world and outside of it -- who gave me a smile, good advice, or an encouraging word to help me keep my spirits up during those times of struggle. There were many, and there will be more in the years ahead. This profession is such a roller-coaster ride, I know... And thanks, too, to those same people who danced with me (virtually or in person -- perhaps only stopping for chocolate/dessert breaks) when there was a reason for joy. I'm hoping there will be more days like that ahead as well.

I wish all of you the BIGGEST of dreams and, just as much, I wish you the supportive people who'll be there for you on your journey toward reaching them. When you get there, be sure to tell them thanks :) .

Who are some of the people in your life who have been most supportive of you??
___

Marilyn Brant is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of contemporary women's fiction, romantic comedy and mystery. She was named Author of the Year (2013) by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English. She loves all things Jane Austen, as well as Sherlock Holmes stories, traveling, music, chocolate & gelato. Her latest romantic comedy is Pride, Prejudice and the Perfect Bet (July 2014), and look for the expanded women's fiction edition of The Road to You, entitled The Road and Beyond, coming in September!