Musing of the Romantics

Roving Reporter Anna Campbell from RWA

Dauntless Roving Reporter Checks in! Hello, RNTVers! How are things? I wish you could all be here. It's so exciting to have such great talent all together under one roof - and all, as you can imagine, TALKING! I seriously think the decibel level last night at the signing was higher than ten jet planes taking off at the same time!

I've been in San Francisco for a couple of days playing the tourist but last night I had to put on my writer hat. It was wonderful to meet all the readers, particularly when I was clutching two large blue flags saying 'RITA finalist!'. In fact, I believe there may even be a photo or two where I pretend to be King Tut and cross them across my chest. Hmm, things were getting silly by then...

After the signing, the Romance Bandits held a soiree. Well, it was more of a bash, really. We wandered across two rooms and an adjoining corridor. Lots of wonderful people there including the Bandits (who as you know are the "rowdiest band on the Net" - trademark!) and Barbara Vey from Publishers Weekly and the Incomparable Claudia Dain and Liz Carlyle (I must say I gave a fan girl scream when I saw LC, she's one of my heroes). We also invited a lot of our regular commenters to thank them for all their wonderful support since the RBs started up a little over a year ago. The culinary highlight was a huge wedding cake with "Did you spend the night with a golden rooster?" written on it. One wonders what the baker made of the message! In Australia, wedding cake is heavy fruitcake covered with sick-making marzipan icing, so the American style of wedding cake was such a treat!

The hotel is lovely! With extremely nice staff. And there's a wonderful bar right on the top floor where you can watch the mist rolling in (there's a lot of mist to watch!) and hiding the Golden Gate. But at least we know it's there. I had drinks there with Michelle Buonfiglio on Tuesday afternoon which was great fun. I've decided that I'm only going to drink marga-RITAs while I'm here. Yeah, I AM pushing this! Then all the Bandits went out for dinner at Annabelle's across the road and shocked the staff with the rowdiness (TM) of our behavior!

Today is really busy including the Booksellers Best Awards where CLAIMING THE COURTESAN is up for best long historical. Wish me luck. I'll check back in tomorrow with some more gossip - including WHO spent the night with that naughty rooster! Bwork!

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Book Review: Surrender to Me by Sophie Jordan

Reviewed by Andrea Williamson

4.5 stars

Sophie Jordan is an author to watch. She is one of the fastest rising stars in historical romance today, making the USA Today bestseller list with only her second book! Talk about remarkable! And speaking of remarkable, her latest release, Surrender To Me, is precisely that.

Lady Astrid Derring has not lived the easiest of lives. Her mother ran off with Astrid’s dancing instructor leaving her with an impossible father who eventually married her off to the disreputable Duke of Derring. To avoid the hangman’s noose for forgery, her husband takes off for parts unknown leaving Astrid penniless, alone and the subject of vicious gossip. For five long years, she has gone to great lengths just to survive, unsure of and indifferent to whether her errant husband is dead or alive. Then she receives an anonymous letter telling her that Bertram is alive, assuming someone else’s identity and engaged to another woman. Astrid resolves to go to Scotland and confront Bertram, if it is indeed him. Almost to her destination, Astrid’s coach is besieged by ruthless highwaymen. Before she is physically assaulted, Griffin Shaw comes to her rescue and dispatches the brutes, but not before he is injured in the process. Since the heroic stranger saved her life, Astrid returns the favor by helping nurse him back to health. Once Griffin is on the mend, Astrid makes the short trip to deal with Bertram. While there, someone knocks on the door and Astrid must hide, never suspecting that she would witness her husband’s murder. Griffin, a Texan visiting Scotland to locate his relatives, intercepts her while she is fleeing the scene and thus begins their adventure together.

Astrid’s character grew by leaps and bounds from beginning to end. Because of her past, she is cold and standoffish and trusts no one. She has done things she’s not proud of, including committing an unthinkable act against her sister-in-law only to realize too late how sorry she was for her transgressions. I must say that Ms. Jordan does an impeccable job of redeeming her. Not only do we learn that Astrid is remorseful, but we also begin to understand and sympathize with why she did the things she did. And it takes her interactions with Griffin, who is also unable to forgive himself for past actions, for her to comprehend that she is not a bad person and is completely worthy of another’s love. I have such high admiration for

Griffin, who is honor-bound and a complete gentleman. He is smart and protective, not to mention he has the patience of a saint when dealing with Astrid. His perseverance pays off when he finally melts her icy façade and discovers the warm, loving woman beneath.

It is no wonder that Ms. Jordan’s star is on the rise — her books are beautifully written and incredibly romantic.  Surrender To Me is a wonderful adventure, rich with emotion and searing passion. It is a terrific addition to her booklist and also to my keeper shelf. I highly recommend it!

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Book Review: When Twilight Burns by Colleen Gleason

Reviewed by Kati Dancy
4.5 stars

I’ve never made any bones about the fact that I’m a huge fan of Colleen Gleason’s Gardella Vampire Chronicles. There are a lot of reasons for this: they are historical paranormals, which we don’t see a lot of, the heroine, Lady Victoria Gardella Grantworth de Lacy is strong, smart and a natural leader, and Gleason has created one of the most intriguing love triangles in romance.

When we last left our heroine, in the previous book, The Bleeding Dusk, she had sustained a bite from one of the most powerful vampires in the world. She’d been rescued, but whether she’d succumb to the bite, or come back changed was definitely in question. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you that Victoria DOES survive the bite (good news for all of us, since it’s a five book series). In the opening of book four of the series, When Twilight Burns, our heroine has returned to England from Italy and is again ensconced in her deceased husband’s home, St. Heath’s Row. More than that, Victoria has assumed the mantle of Illa Gardella, the head of the Venators, or Vampire Slayers. In this capacity, she is back in England and is on the prowl again for vampires. Beside her is Sebastian Vioget, a deliciously mysterious man, whose loyalty has been in question throughout the series, and Maximillian Pesaro, a former Venator who is both a friend to Victoria, but also among those who can most easily get a rise out of her.

This book is no exception in that it has brought many challenges to Victoria. She has been implicated in a series of deaths in London, because she keeps discovering the bodies. The Venators suspect that a daytime vampire has been created and is committing these murders. As a result, Victoria has managed to catch the attention of a Bow Street Runner named Beamis Goodwin, who is both distasteful and highly suspicious. On top of that, Victoria suspects that the Vampire Queen, Lilith has returned to London and is planning something. And whatever it is, is not going to be good. Plus, her dead husband’s heir has come to England to take his place as Lord Rockley, and her Mamma has marriage aspirations for Victoria and him. Will the Venators be able to act in time to stop Lilith? Will Victoria be able to escape the suspicion of Bow Street? Will Victoria ever choose between the two men in her life, Max and Sebastian? Or could this new man be someone with whom she becomes involved?

Without giving away any spoilers, I can tell you that Victoria’s adventures continue to be fascinating and action-packed. Gleason is a meticulous researcher, and her books always surround interesting moments in history. When Twilight Burns is set against the backdrop of the Prince Regent’s coronation. It is slyly done, interweaving the elements of the story against the actual history. The reason this series is one of my favorites is that Victoria is a smart, dangerous killer, but also very definitely a woman in her own right. But this is juxtaposed against the social mores of the time. The author has saddled her with an ambitious, social climbing Mamma, who would like nothing more than to see her daughter matched with yet another peer of the realm.

Victoria is also surrounded by many beloved secondary characters, some of whom catapult the story forward. As usual in this series, Victoria suffers losses. She suffers — and those around her suffer. But it moves the story ahead, and one is always left with the feeling that while we don’t know what the story has in store for us, the author has a good reason for how the story unfolds.

This book is yet another sterling entry in the Gardella Vampire Chronicles. Colleen Gleason has yet again outdone herself with the continuing adventures of Victoria Gardella Grantworth de Lacy. Although this book could stand alone, I highly recommend that you start with The Rest Falls Away in order to have a fuller reading experience. I can guarantee that you won’t be sorry.

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I'm a People Watcher by Lora Leigh

I’m a people watcher. It’s always been my weakness, to sit and observe rather than to interact because reactions and interactions have always fascinated me. Even as a little girl, when my parents had company, I’d find a corner in the room where I wouldn’t be noticed, and I’d just listen and I’d watch. I’d watch their expressions as I listened to their voices, I noticed body language and I noticed eyes. That habit followed me as I grew up, went to school and found myself watching rather than interacting there as well. It’s a habit that followed me into my adult life, and with it, a curiosity that began to grow within me. I was a listener and a watcher and over the years I learned how to see and how to hear much more than what I was being told or what I was seeing. Until the stories that were a part of me began to grow in depth as well and I began to see and to feel the intricacies and the depths of the emotions that drove people that I watched on a day to day basis.

I learned no one was completely bad, or completely good. I learned that even those that I respected the most, had faults. I learned that mistakes are often regretted and that just because an apology wasn’t offered, didn’t mean that atonement wasn’t attempted. And as I matured, began my own relationships, friendships and interactions, I learned how powerful certain emotions could be, and in the long run, how destructive pride and weakness could become. The price of love is sometimes high, and I learned that just because you love, doesn’t mean you’re loved, and that loving together doesn’t mean it’s going to work.

As I learned these lessons, the stories inside me began to grow, their emotions became stronger, deeper, and their lives began to blaze inside me, until they had to be written.

The characters of the Nauti series are an example of how characters take on a life of their own inside my imagination. When they began, being the cousins of the Men of August, I had a vision of a similar series to the August men. The first version of that first book, actually had them going in that direction. With the rewrite, and reworking the series for Berkley, I found that the Mackay cousins weren’t quite satisfied going that route. Their lives evolved, but I thought Natches Mackay, the youngest of those three cousins, would always stay that same.

He was more mysterious, and at times I thought too hard, too cold. He refused to ‘talk’ to me as the other characters did, until his story, Nauti Dreams. And when he let go with his heroine, I found myself in tears, writing as I cried, and feeling his and his heroines emotions with such depth that I couldn’t believe he’d hidden them from me.

Nauti Dreams isn’t the last book of the series, but Natches touched me in ways that few heroes do. I hope he touches your imagination and your dreams as he did mine. August 5^th will see the release of Natches story, and until then I hope you’ll contact me and let me know what you thought of Rowdy and Dawgs stories in Nauti Boy and Nauti Nights.

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Book Review: In My Wildest Fantasies by Juliane MacLean

Reviewed by Andrea Williamson
4.5 stars

Julianne MacLean is an author that I discovered in the middle of a series. Actually, it was the last book of the series. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of Surrender to a Scoundrel, the last of her American Heiress series. Like many other readers, I’m very picky about wanting to read a series in order, but I couldn’t resist and sat down to read it. I wasn’t even 100 pages in and immediately hopped online and ordered the other five books in the series. Yes, I was hooked. The Mistress Diaries is the second in Ms. MacLean’s Pembroke Palace series, following In My Wildest Fantasies.

Lady Cassandra Montrose met Lord Vincent Sinclair at a ball immediately upon coming out of mourning. The attraction they instantly felt towards one another was palpable and undeniable. Impulsively, they left the ball and spent a single passion-filled night together that neither one would ever forget. One year later, Cassandra has no choice but to come to Vincent’s home . . . but she is not alone. Vincent, a renowned rake and libertine, has recently become betrothed. He doesn’t particularly want to get married, but his father, the Duke of Pembroke, has made a stipulation in his will that all four of his sons must be married by Christmas in order to gain their inheritance. When Vincent returns home to present his fiancée to his family, he is shaken by what he learns–he has a daughter.

I really felt for Vincent. He has suffered tragedy in his past–three years before, he was betrayed by the woman he had loved since childhood and his brother. That incident hardened his heart to not only his brother, but also to love. Now, he finds out that a former lover is in the palace at the same time that he has brought his fiancée home. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place! Ah, but then he meets his daughter for the first time. That scene is so sweet and so touching and you know that he isn’t as heartless as he appears.

Cassandra has had her share of tragedy as well. She was married to a man who loved another, his mistress, until his death. After becoming pregnant (after her night with Vincent), she is shunned by friends and family, left completely destitute and has to work and scrape to make ends meet for her and her daughter. Upon learning from a physician that she hasn’t long to live, Cassandra swallows her pride and brings her daughter to the palace in the hopes that the child will be cared for. When she is examined by the Pembroke doctor, she is told that all she needs is rest and nourishment. But, when Cassandra tries to leave with their daughter, Vincent doesn’t want them to go.

Cassandra and Vincent are fantastic, well-written characters. Cassandra is proud and determined, but cannot resist Vincent and his charms for long. There were several times in the story when she could have done the “expected” thing, but I was grateful that Ms. MacLean didn’t take the easy route. Cassandra was smart and stayed true to her character, and I absolutely respected that. Vincent wasn’t always so cynical, but it took the love of the right woman to help him realize it and heal his heart. The scenes between Cassandra and Vincent were filled with sparkling dialogue and plenty of sexual tension. Ms. MacLean is one of those writers that shows you rather than tells you and it’s one of the reasons why I am such a huge fan of her work. The Mistress Diaries is a fast paced read brimming with emotion that I highly recommend!

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Book Review: Some Like it Wicked by Teresa Medeiros

She’s back and she’s better than ever. It has been 22 months since the publication of The Vampire Who Loved Me and fans of Teresa Medeiros have been wondering just how long we would have to wait for another book from this NYT Bestselling author. Take heart, faithful readers. Some Like it Wicked, a historical set in England and the Scottish Highlands during the early 1800’s, is being released July 29th and is well worth the wait.

Catriona Kincaid is the heroine of this story and I adore her. A proud, feisty and fiercely loyal Scot, she has been living with her English uncle’s family since the age of ten when her parents were killed by redcoats and her fifteen year old brother, Connor, sent her away for her safety.  The unlikely hero, Simon Wescott, is a bad, bad boy and utterly delicious. The bastard son of a nobleman, he’s a rake and a rogue who has been seducing his way through the London ladies since he was a young man. When Catriona first encounters Simon she’s 15 and he’s a young Navy officer in the process of seducing her cousin before shipping out with Admiral Nelson. Their meeting is very memorable, in classic Medeiros style, and had me laughing by the fifth page of the book with lines like “but the thing on his back just lay there, wheezing down his neck like a consumptive walrus.”

Now approaching her 21st birthday, Catriona is determined to return to her beloved Highlands to search for her brother and, with him, restore honor to their clan. Her uncle, who renounced his Scots heritage long ago, is equally determined to keep her in England by marrying her off to the first man who asks but he has seriously underestimated his niece’s determination. If she’s going to be forced to marry it will be to someone of her own choosing so Catriona sets off to find herself a husband, one who will escort her to the Kincaid clan in the Highlands then quietly disappear with half of her dowry as payment. She has only one name on her list - Simon Wescott, the hero of her young dreams, the Navy officer honored for saving his captain’s life, the dissolute, disreputable, penniless rogue who now sits in a cell at Newgate, jailed for not paying his debts and, even worse, seducing the daughter of the magistrate who sentenced him. Even with all the evidence facing her, Catriona still believes that Simon is, at his core, an honorable man. Simon, of course, knows better. Still, money does talk and a bargain is struck but the stakes are raised when Simon adds a demand of his own. If he’s going to risk his neck delivering Catriona to Scotland he wants more than just money. Simon wants a wedding night.

What follows is a wonderful story filled with sparkling dialogue, plenty of humor, unexpected surprises and a depth of emotion that had me laughing, crying, cheering and sighing. Both Catriona and Simon have significant personal obstacles to overcome on their journey to a happy ending. Redeeming Simon, in particular, is no easy task but Medeiros molds him gradually and flawlessly into a man worthy of love and respect. Watching these two grow as individuals as they are tested by life and love is pure pleasure and the scenes when each of them reaches that point in their love when they willingly put the other’s needs before their own had my own emotions spilling over. 

Teresa Medeiros has created a beautiful love story with characters that captured my heart and still haven’t let go. Make room on your keeper shelf for Some Like it Wicked!

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Buffie's July's Hottie of the Month

Sensuality – excessive indulgence in the pleasures of the senses.

Make an appointment to spend some time with this month’s hottie and be ready to overindulge your senses.

Ladies, may I introduce to you this month’s hottie. His name is Brandon Beemer, and he exudes sensuality.

Brandon is 28 years old, and was born in beautiful state of Oregon. As you can tell from his gorgeous face, he is of German and Irish descent. Look at those dreamy eyes, girls!!!!  Brandon had a short stint as a model in
New York City before making the decision to move to Los Angeles and pursue his acting career. He has been on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. Brandon is currently acting on The Bold and The Beautiful as the character Owen Knight.

Brandon is a Pisces (like me :-) ) whose main goal is to live a happy and healthy life. He enjoys a variety of sports and exercise, plays Texas Hold ‘Em poker, and loves camping and hiking.

I do believe I could over indulge my senses with Brandon. What about you?

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Girlfriends by Susan Andersen

Today we have a very special guest blogger, romance author, Susan Andersen. Ms. Andersen has been one of my favorite authors for many years, so when I discovered her My Space Page, well I just had to write and find out if she’d visit with us. And being the ever gracious and terrific person that she is, she agreed. Susan’s new book Cutting Loose releases July29th, and I already have my copy ordered. If Susan Andersen is a new author to you - she writes “contemporary romance with just enough suspense and comedy to keep things interesting. Her books have spent many weeks on the USAToday bestseller list, the New York Times Extended list, and have twice been included in RWA’s Top Ten Favorite Books of the Year. ”  Of course you can visit her website for more info - but before you do - today, Susan is blogging about Girlfriends.

Girlfriends by Susan Andersen

 

 

As a writer, I spend a lot of time alone–and usually that’s okay, because left to my own devices, I can be a bit of a loner. But like most women, I’ve got a secret weapon to pull me into the social stream–my girlfriends.

Girlfriends hold you up when you’re down. They make you laugh and hug you, hold your hand, or just sit quietly by your side when you cry. And, hey, who else will talk you into buying those shoes/clothes/you-name-it that you really want but are rationalizing yourself out of?

I have a few separate circles of women friends with the occasional intermix or crossover. I have my long-time friends that I’ve known forever and with whom I can pick up a conversation like no time at all has passed even if it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other. I have writer friends that in the beginning I had only a vocation in common but with whom I’ve forged lasting friendships. My closest writer-chick circle is comprised of several of us who started out at roughly the same time. We grew up in the industry together and although we’re spread out over several states and two continents (so only see each other periodically) we talk frequently either online or by phone. I also have two event-specific groups comprised of women I rarely see outside those events but who fill the time we spend together with so much laughter and camaraderie that I always come away feeling refreshed and smiling.

But my dearest friend is Mimi. She and I met through my oldest brother, who worked with her husband Doug. We might have remained simply friendly acquaintances had she and Doug not bought a house on our block. Our husbands hit it off as well and we started getting together occasionally…then more often…then darn near every Saturday night until the kids got to that age where their events start taking up your every waking hour. And during those barbeques, shopping trips, card games and endless conversations, she became my best friend. We share a history that spans thirty years and encompasses husbands, kids and pets, books and food, joys and sorrows. She was there for me when my dad and my sister-in-law died. I was there for her when she went into labor with her second son. In fact, I thought for sure I was going to deliver him because she was too stubborn to go to the hospital until Doug got there to take her. Yeah, yeah, this is the pot calling the kettle black. But honest-to-God, she was on the phone lying to the doctor, telling him her contractions were ten minutes apart, while I–who’d been timing them –was yelling in the background, “Five minutes! They’re FIVE MINUTES APART!”

Cough. But I wander away from the point. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to find a friend who hits on all cylinders for you–who gets your humor and roots for your successes and commiserates with your failures. Who shares meals and comfort with equal generosity and who loves you simply for the person you are, warts and all. That’s what I got with Mimi.

And that’s the underlying premise of my new series, which I’m kicking off with my July 29th release of Cutting Loose, the first in my Sisterhood Diaries books. Jane, Poppy and Ava have been friends since the fourth grade and the three of them have inherited a rundown mansion. I hope you’ll join me in their adventures, in the struggles and joys they encounter and the men destined to be their soulmates whom they meet, wrangle and fall in love with.

 But until then, who is special in your life? I’d love to hear.

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What is Your Greatest Fear? By Kimberly Killion

It’s Kimberly Killion day on Romance Novel TV. First, take a look at Buffie Johnson’s Review of Her One Desire (just below). Secondly, help me welcome debut author Kimberly Killion who writes Sexy Medieval Romances for Kensington Publishing/Zebra. She found her love for all things tragic, passionate, and historic after taking a mythology course in college. The book wasn’t Romeo and Juliet, as you might suspect, but Dante’s Inferno, Oedipus, The Iliad, and a few other Greek tragedies. An artist by profession, Kimberly traded her paintbrush for a pen and began to explore the realm of romance. Sharing her passion for words by teaching college, Kimberly lives in Illinois with her husband, two children, a dog, three cats, and two dozen chickens. You can visit Kimberly’s website to find out more, but for now – let’s join Kimberly as she talks about FEARS.

What is your greatest fear?

As a new author, one of my greatest fears right now is failure. That hasn’t always been the single most terrifying thing in my life. First and foremost, I fear spiders. Ever since I pulled a wolf spider (the size of my hand, I swear) out of my tennis shoe when I was ten, I have been terrified of spiders. The fact my older sister used to chase me with daddy-longlegs when we were growing up didn’t help with this life-long phobia.

I’m not a fan of the dark, or scary movies, or balloons. That’s right – balloons. I don’t like the fact that air is trapped inside a thin plastic element guaranteed to explode at any moment with a heart-stopping-pulse-pounding-loud (((BANG))). Breathe, breathe…give me a moment while I regroup.

Creating fears in a character can build on the three-dimensionality of a hero or heroine. As an author, it is my job to build strong characters, but without weaknesses, a character has nothing to overcome. It is easy to create a character and say, ‘poof’ you are afraid of the dark, or ‘poof’ you are afraid of heights, but to give that character a sense of reality, an author has to give that character reasons for those fears.

In my debut book, Her One Desire, my heroine has a slew of fears. She fears the dark, water, small areas, actually, she is pretty much terrified of her own shadow. But she has reasons for those fears. She is the executioner’s daughter and wasn’t exactly raised in an environment becoming a princess. What I think is the magical part about writing is helping those characters overcome their fears, and who better to fulfill that job than the hero. Bring a man into the scene who wants to help this woman overcome her fears, give him a set of abs to die for, dress him a kilt, and you have yourself a romance. Am I right?

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Romance Novel TV Interview with Terri Garey

Today is Terri Garey day on Romance Novel TV. If you haven’t had a chance to read A Match Made in Hell, check out Maria Lokken’s review below. If you have read it, then you may already know a bit about our today’s Guest Author.

“A Southern girl with an overactive imagination, Terri Garey grew up in Florida , always wondering why tropical prints and socks with sandals were considered a fashion statement. She survived the heat by reading in the shade, and watching cool shows like the The Twilight Zone and the classic gothic soap opera, Dark Shadows. Born too late to be a hippy and too early to be a Goth, Terri did the logical thing and became a computer geek. Balancing a career with marriage and motherhood convinced her that life was too short to rely entirely on the left side of her brain, and quirky ideas about life among the undead began to replace the dry logic of computers. Deciding imagination was her best weapon in the war against reality, Terri dove even deeper into the world of the unexplained, and started writing her own demented tales from the dark side.”

Dead Girls Are Easy, A Match Made In Hell, Ghouls Night Out, and You’re The One That I Haunt are part of an ongoing series about Nicki Styx, a former Goth girl who becomes an unwilling ghoulfriend to the dead. (from Terri Garey’s website)

RNTV: Welcome to RNTV – and congratulations on your latest release A Match Made in Hell, the sequel to Dead Girls Are Easy.

Terri: Thank you! I’m tickled to be here.

RNTV: Dead Girls Are Easy is the first in the series, followed by A Match Made In Hell – can you tell us a bit about when you got the call that the book would be published? And was it sold as a series?

Terri: Oh gee, let’s see if I can recall the details… October 12, 2005 at 4:13pm EST. LOL!  As if I could ever forget! Plus, I wrote it down (very shakily, I might add).

I began writing Dead Girls Are Easy in April of 2004, and it took me over a year to finish that first draft. I signed with my agent in the summer of 2005, and in late August she submitted the manuscript to Erika Tsang at Avon. We got word back fairly quickly that Erika was interested, and she requested a three-week exclusive before we sent it to anyone else. On October 12^th, my agent called with the fabulous news that we had an offer, both for Dead Girls Are Easy and the planned sequel. So, in publishing terms, we had a “pre-empt” and a two-book deal. I was thrilled—Avon had always been my first choice of publisher. They’ve been absolutely wonderful, by the way.

Last summer, I was asked to write a Nicki Styx novella (included in the June 2008 paranormal anthology, Weddings From Hell) and this past September I received an offer for two more stand-alone novels in the Nicki Styx series. You’re The One That I Haunt is a March 2009 release, and there will be another (as yet untitled), in November 2009.

I think the biggest question on my mind is how you created the heroine Nicki Styx. This is a heroine with lots of layers. She’s a goth girl, who is into fashion, she’s bold, brave and yet very sensitive, possessed with a wicked sense of humor, oh and yeah – she sees dead people. Did you just dream her up out of that creative mind of yours, or is she a combination of people you’ve known?

Weird as it may sound (particularly to those who’ve met me!) I must admit that I consider Nicki, in some ways, to be my alter ego. She’s who I’d like to be (minus the seeing dead people part!) I got married very young, had children, worked full-time in the computer industry, and never really got the chance to be young and carefree, much less goth—I was always too busy being responsible! Her wicked sense of humor is mine, but Nicki’s much more comfortable saying things out loud than I am. J I felt like adding a gothic aspect to her personality would make her life more interesting—it’s one thing to be “into the dark side”, but it’s a whole other ballgame when the dark side becomes interested in you, don’t you think? :-)

My husband and I have done a lot of volunteering in the arts community, so I’m very comfortable with people who are willing to be a little “out there”, so to speak. I’ve never seen a ghost, but I know some very credible people who claim they have. So basically, the idea of Nicki Styx came from playing the “what if” game: What if a free-spirited young woman, who thought the darker side of life was cool, actually died, then came back to life and started seeing spirits herself? How would she deal with it? How would it change her as a person? Would it still be cool? Her character really fell into place in my mind after that.

RNTV: You put a very interesting spin on things in this book – Nicki discovers she’s an identical twin. Being an identical twin myself, I thought you hit all the right notes on how twins can act and react toward each other. Did you know in the first book, Dead Girls are Easy that Nicki had a long lost twin – or did A Match Made in Hell necessitate her having a sibling? And why identical twins?

Terri: Wow, you’re a twin? That’s another concept that’s always really fascinated me. The idea of knowing there are two of you, yet knowing that inside you’re completely unique, must lead to a lot of conflicting feelings from time to time—at least that’s how I imagine it. So yes, I knew that Nicki would have a twin sister, and upped the conflict by making her a twin sister she never knew existed. Then I upped it even more by bringing her romantic interest, Joe Bascombe, into the triangle. Poor Nicki. LOL!

I have three sisters myself, and though I’m not a twin, I’m very familiar with how sisters can be with each other. :-)

Many authors create ‘rules’ about what happens in their world, particularly when it comes to paranormals. In A Match Made in Hell both Nicky and her twin Kelly see dead people, but each in their own way.  Are there any other ‘rules’ you’ve set up in the over all arc of the series?

Actually, other than the difference you just mentioned between Nicki and Kelly’s abilities, I try very hard in each book to not make up any rules, and stay true to what I’ve read about ghosts, spirits, Voodoo, Tarot cards or any other supernatural element I decide to incorporate into the plot. It’s very important to me that my characters stay grounded in this world, not an alternate reality. You won’t see any fantasy elements in my books (again, except for the seeing dead people parts). :-)

A Match Made In Hell surprises the reader with unexpected twists and turns – are you a plotter or do you fly by the seat of your pants when you write?

The honest answer is that I’m a mixture of both. I begin a book with an overall idea, and then I work out the plot points as I go along, usually only a few chapters at a time. Once that first draft is finished, I go back and do what I call “layering”, adding emphasis here or there, taking out things that don’t add to the storyline, putting in things that do. Do I know the plot from beginning to end before I begin? Absolutely not. But do I have an overall, arching idea of what I’m going for? Definitely.

RNTV: I found I had to read your book with the lights on, do you personally enjoy watching scary TV shows or movies, or reading scary stories?

Terri: Oh, this is a great question, because I am the biggest scaredy-cat you’ll ever meet! (And a nice compliment, too. If you had to read it with the lights on, then I’m a happy ghoul!) I’m completely fascinated by the paranormal, because it really, truly scares me, and I figure if I have that strong of reaction to something, I should use it in my writing. On the other hand, I absolutely adore Halloween, grew up watching Addams Family and Munsters re-runs, and love the scary old movies of the 40’s and 50’s, but you will NOT find me watching horror, gore or splatter films, ever. I was permanently scarred by The Exorcist, and while I finally got up the nerve to see The Ring, I wish I hadn’t. :-)Scared the bejeebers outta me!

Reading is a little different—I do like Stephen King and Dean Koontz, and nothing beats good old Edgar Allen Poe for the shivers. I love a good ghost story, always have. Can you tell? :-)

Bottom line, I feel like there’s a big difference between “horror” and “spooky”. Give me spooky anytime. And if the writer can relieve the tension with a laugh now and then, so much the better (which is what I try my very best to do).

Thanks so much for having me today!

RNTV: It’s such a joy to have you with us today and now I’m opening it up to viewers questions and comments.

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