Samhain Publishing

As many people know, I lived in Hawaii for three years. I have been back twice and it is now becoming a yearly (or more than yearly) visit for me. Why?Since the HARMLESS books are set in Hawaii for the most part,  I can write part of the trip off of taxes. This time, though, I got to do something extra special. I love going with my family and enjoying Hawaii, don't get me wrong. Our youngest was born there and such as military life, she was only 27 months old when we left, so she only has hazy memories and pics we show her. So the spring of 2010, that trip served the purpopse. This time, though, I got to take my best friend and personal assistant, Brandy Walker. We were on a mission, ya see. A mission to get some HAWAIIAN GOODIES.

It was definitely a different experience going to Hawaii with someone who had never been there.  I could show her all the different places that locals go, places I have mentioned to her, and just enjoy the beauty of the islands. I actually wish we had at least two weeks there so we could island hop, but that just wasn't going to happen cuz I think our hubbies would revolt, lol. One of the greatest things on the trip, and i think Brandy agrees with me, was the trip to the Aloha Swap Meet. It is THE place on Oahu to visit for all the Hawaiian goodies you want to take home. Entry fee is 1 buck per person and it is worth it. Brandy and I came home with so much stuff to give away, including my Big Giveaway for the Brenda Novak Diabetes Auction. And, when I meet up with the Harmless Addicts in New Orleans for Authors After Dark, I will have a bunch of goodies to give them straight from Hawaii. I am now convinced I need to do this once a year, but Mr. Mel is very skeptical for some reason. Check out Wayde's World Video on it. Safe for work and definitely a great overview!

But, beyond the goodie shopping, I wanted to show Brandy what I talk about in my books. Hawaii isn't just a place on the map. Not for the people who live there–just like Aloha is not a just aword. It is a state of mind, one that you can only appreciate if you take the time to pay attention. Along with the hustle and bustle that makes up Oahu, and it has 800K+ on that little island, there is an underlying state of mind. No one is really in a hurry, and you should always help your neighbor out.  One of the things I like to always point out, though, is that they are people. They are just you and me, and everyone else you know. They have the same problems, the same issues with family and work, but, there is that spirit there that just makes it so much easier to handle.

Another great thing is I got to show Brandy my favorite drive, a few of them in fact, and we even went to the Dole Plantation. I also stopped by my old stomping grounds of Hickam AFB where lived when Mr Mel was stationed there. A trip to Hawaii is not complete for the Schroeders unless we hit up one of the bases for Mongolian BBQ. It was a little crazier than normal this time, but for those of you who have never been, there is a table filled with fruits, nuts, veggies, and extras (brown sugar, ginger, etc) then you add whatever meat you want and they cook it for you. It is SCRUMPTIOUS. It also allowed us to stop by the Missing Man Formation on base. 

But as they say, all good things must come to an end. I am already trying to plan another trip back later this year so that I can pick up goodies for the next AAD, and I am really looking forward to it. It is one of the few places we lived where I feel the need to get everyone to love it…because there is so much there to love.

 

And, if you want to keep up with all things Hawaiian and Harmless, make sure you are an ADDICT.

 

Aloha and A hui ho,

 

Mel

On Mother’s Day, my family took me to see The Avengers. I loved the movie, but I kept wondering where Wolverine was. Yes, I know he’s not technically a superhero…or is he?

Whether the superhero was The Hulk, The Iron Man, or Captain America, isn’t the main idea that he’s there when you need him? A superhero rises to the occasion, even when his heart may not be totally into it (Can you hear me, Iron Man?) or because his nature (Hello, Hulk) turns into an asset when aliens are attacking. But aren’t most supernatural romance men made of the same stuff, too? They have the right stuff, if you will.

All superheroes and supernatural romance heroes have one thing in common. Personally, it’s the thing that makes me, and I suspect a lot of women, love them even more. They all have a character flaw. Take The Hulk versus the Wolverine. Each man is strong with a bit of an anger management problem. But down deep, they’re both nice guys you can trust them to keep the world safe by grabbing the bad guy by the leg and bashing him around. Okay, Wolverine would’ve slashed Loki’s face off instead of bashing him left and right, but it’s all the same in the end. The good guys win.

I’d like to think the paranormal heroes in my books are superheroes, too. Maybe they aren’t saving the world, but they’re still the man the heroine turns to when she needs someone to help her through everything from trust issues to fighting the villain in her lif. My latest superhero is werewolf Tucker Manning in Betting the Moon (Cannon Pack, book 4). He’s not out to save the world or even to meet the woman of his dreams. But when he does meet her, he’s the one who saves her from the vampire bad guy. He’s flawed, but strong. He’s cocky, but sensitive when the heroine needs him to be. He’s a good guy mixed with an element of bad thrown in to make him interesting. So, yes,  he’s a superhero in my eyes.

So tell me. Who’s your superhero? Would you choose an Avenger or a supernatural romance hero?

Beverly Rae

www.beverlyrae.com

 

When I was pregnant with my son, my husband and I had a terrible time settling on a name for him. It got so bad I had a recurring nightmare in which we were at the church for his christening and we still didn't know what to call him. We eventually resorted to picking out a placeholder name—something we didn’t completely hate that we could agree to use as a last resort in the event we never did find something better.  When we finally came up with a name we both loved, it was a huge relief…for about a week, which was how long it took us to realize we'd each been spelling it a different way.

For the record, if he’d been a girl this would not have been a problem. We agreed pretty much instantly on what we’d call our daughter. And, four years later, that’s what we did. She hates it, however, and has been planning on changing it ever since she was about eight or nine. Which just goes to show that sometimes you just can’t win.

Other than that one time, however, I’ve never really had much trouble coming up with names for things or titles for books…until now. My most recently completed book (and please note, I use the word “completed” very loosely here) currently goes by the title Book Three or, as I like to call it, The Mess.

Descriptive?   You betcha, but not likely to sell very well.  I’m thinking my editor will have something to say if I  don’t  find something a little sexier than that before I turn the manuscript in.  I wonder how hard it would be to talk her into calling it Jason Christopher? You know, just as a last resort. Hey, it worked last time.

I get asked a lot where I get my ideas for my books. I shrug and say, "Everywhere." I thought I should expand on that cryptic answer and talk about what makes my heart beat, and better yet, what makes it stop and swoon.

I'm an emotional person, get choked up at tv shows, movies, commercials, band concerts, books, and so on. It doesn't take much to turn on the waterworks, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad. What that means is I feel things deeply. My heart and mind are impacted by the world around me.

Let me give you an example. Recently I read an article about the guy in the pink tutu. Wha? It's the story about a man whose wife had breast cancer. He wanted to cheer her up so he took a picture of himself wearing only a pink tutu (ya can't see anything beneath the tutu, so they're not naughty pics). Then he took another picture in a different location, and again and again. Now he's publishing a book of all the pictures and the profits will go toward non profit cancer research.

That story made me choke up. That is LOVE y'all. Pure, joyful love from one man to his lady. (I'm getting teary-eyed writing this blog post about that story – ha!).

This is what inspires me to write – the world around us has that kind of love. When I write a book my heart beats fast, my palms sweat and I become a character in that book, feeling everything right along with them. I can't help it. It's how I'm put together.

My next Samhain release, ENDLESS HEART, is brimming with intense, raw emotion. Powerful stuff. I am a hopeless romantic. A sucker for a happy ending who gets indignant when there is no HEA. It's no wonder I am a voracious romance reader and author.

My husband thinks these books are a fantasyland and in a way he's right. They are fantasy – I mean it's fiction, right? LOL. If it wasn't fiction, the book would be a biography or something equally as ho-hum like non-fiction. *makes a face*

Inspiration comes in many forms and each day something new reminds me of just how amazing life can be. Rock on, world, and keep it coming.

It's okay. You can point fingers and label me a 'bad mommy' if you want to. I'll understand. I mean, how often do you see a mother laughing with untold joy after dropping her kids at school?

That was me, today. The car door opened, the kids climbed out, and a sense of pure relief and happiness overwhelmed me. For the first time in three weeks my kids were back at school and back in a routine. See, it's been school holidays here. And this holiday has been longer than usual, what with public holidays and religious holidays. So for 20 days (yes, I counted) I had the kids at home. Which wouldn't have been so bad if I'd had Mr Dee at home to help with them. But no, he was away on business, so I had the unadulterated pleasure of looking after Mr 7 and Mr 10, alone, the entire time.

Don't get me wrong. I love and adore my children. To distraction. But distraction here is the key word. You ever try work with two noisy kids (and all their friends) at home? You ever tried to sit down and write a love scene? How about an explicit love scene, with no word left unsaid and no idea left unexplored? Yeah. I tried. And guess what? It didn't work. Not one word of it. So apart from one day, when I managed to co-ordinate both kids being out at the same time, for a period of more than three hours, I have gotten absolutely no work done.

Which means:

1) I had to pull out of an anthology I'd committed too. (No, not very professional at all, I know. And I feel really awful about it.)

2) I have less than a week to get a book in to a publisher. (Yeah, about that…)

3) I haven't had a chance to think about my next Samhain book – which is all beautifully contracted and needing to be written. (Can you hear my joy turning to full blown panic?)

4) The house is a mess. (Altho I did manage to shove some stuff in a cupboard before Mr Dee arrived home at the crack of dawn today, so the house doesn't appear quite so messy as it actually is. Just please, do not let him open that cupboard door…!)

5) We haven't eaten a proper meal in weeks. (Well, except for the few times we went to friends for dinner, and the kids dived in as though they hadn't seen real food in forever.)

6) I havent had a night to just relax either by myself or with pure adult company in a while. The kids' bedtime is way later during the holidays. Which means I have turned into a complete nutter, with no idea how to hold a conversation with a real adult. (But if you'd like to discuss X-box, i-Touch, FIFA 12,  or anything to do with the Hunger Games book or movie, then I'm your woman.)

7) Draw Something has become my favorite means of escape. Which is all well and good, apart from the fact that most of my opponents (and I'm playing a ton of games right now) are either 7 or 10 yrs old.

My book, Office Affair, releases in five days time, and I have given it almost no thought or no attention whatsoever. (Which really isn't at all fair to Mel and Ben, the heroine and hero.)

So, although I'll understand if you do point fingers and label me a bad mommy, I do ask that you give me the benefit of the doubt for just a few minutes. After 20 days of giving myself and my life over completely to my children, I am utterly delighted that I finally get to be Jess again. I just hope, after all this time, I remember how.

xxx

Jess

PS: Office Affair releases at Samhain on TUESDAY. You can get all the details and even pre-order the book right here

.

 

I'm moving house today! Okay, really I'm writing this a few days before, surrounded by piles of cardboard boxes and dust bunnies, but it's scheduled to go up on moving day. What I'm really doing right now is shifting boxes and trying to decide where on earth everything is going to go, and then stressing about where the important things are that we need unpacked straight away. You know: toothbrushes, pjs, teaspoons, drinks cabinet…

The timing isn't brilliant as I have my second novel coming out on Tuesday: Handle with Care (see picture on left – even my moving boxes are joining in with the promo!) I'm still not sure if I'll have my broadband connected by then, but thank God for smartphones and cafés with wifi!

I've become a bit of a pro at moving house now, as I've moved fifteen times in the last sixteen years. Some of those moves were planned; some were forced on me. This particular move is strictly voluntary, but this tiny two-bedroom cottage is bursting at the seams with the three of us, and we can't wait to get in somewhere with a proper garden so my daughter can have a paddling pool this summer – assuming we get a summer here in England!

Despite the trauma of moving I'm glad I've lived in so many different homes as it's given me excellent fodder for writing. Here are my top five best and worst places I've lived:

Read More

We've taken over Chicago!

Not really .

But there are a few of us here at the Romatic Times Convention and we're having an absolute blast! Jet lagged and exhausted, but still smiling. We started out doing the tourist thing downtown, visiting the Art Institute of Chicago (our art galleries don't have Monets so seeing those lillies is pretty exciting, not to mention American Gothic, one of the most recognisable paintings in the world). We've worked our way through deep dish Chicago pizza–twice–and been up to the skydeck in the Willis Tower. I put one toe on the glass floor of the deck but that's as far as I was going (shudder).

Right now we're neck deep in sessions, meetings and parties…I mean work related communication opportunities. Some of us have to go back home on Sunday (sniff, sniff) and we're really not looking forward to the 24hrs of travel it takes to get us back on home soil. But it's all worth it to get together with other authors and the readers we love so much. Thanks for having us Chicago!

I had intended to share some photos here but the open wi-fi seems to disagree with my antivirus software, vehemently in fact! Keep an eye out on my website in the near future for all the piccies.

.

Love,
Sami

Last October my eldest son finally left the nest – I've still got my youngest home, but he's pretty self-sufficient these days, leaving me lots of time to write. So what on earth possessed me less than two months after I'd gained some measure of freedom to take on another responsibility? In this case, a nine week old Shih Tzu puppy we've called Seamus.

It's like being the parent of a newborn all over again. Instead of getting a regular night's sleep, we had to respond to a tiny puppy's nature's calls. Which meant getting dressed up in our winter coat and boats and take him into the cold at two in the morning. Not fun when you've just rolled out a nice warm bed and had your lovely deep sleep interrupted. And not fun to try to write when you have a puppy yapping for attention every time you turn your back to him. Or when you're yawning because … well, he's gotten you up at 2 a.m.

Oh sure, there have been the inevitable mistakes on the carpet. And on the brand new hardwood floor in my office. (They've eased up somewhat but I quickly learned that Shih Tzus can be notoriously challenging to housebreak. It's their natural stubborn nature more than anything, I suspect.) And the corners he's chewed off my printer stand while he was teething. Though he learned how to go up the stairs very quickly, going down took him another two months, and then only after a great deal of coaxing and bribery. (He'll do almost anything for a dried liver snack.)

When we adopted Seamus, my husband used all his high-powered testosterone and insisted I promise that I would never–ever–dress the dog in one of those silly costumes he'd seen people doing on television. Three weeks later, he bought a Santa outfit and made Seamus wear it. Poor Seamus. Little did he know that wearing that silly Santa hat was far better than what he's forced to wear this week.

Last week we stepped up as responsible pet owners and had him neutered. Which means he's now wearing the Cone-of-Shame. Or as we call it the Cone-of-Seamus. Poor little guy looks so pathetic. For the first few hours, he just lay down, refusing to move. We thought he was having problems shaking off the anesthetic so, figuring he was too doped up to lick his missing boyparts, we took pity on him and removed the cone. At which time he popped right up and started prancing around. Obviously it wasn't a reaction to the anesthetic but the cone. Which had to go right back on him as he plopped his little butt down and started worrying the stitches in that tender part of his anatomy.

Eventually he had to accept it and now wanders around providing unintentional moments of hilarity. Especially when the edge of the cone sticks in the ground when he's trying to sniff the grass and he ends up doing a faceplant into the lawn. Or when, going up the stairs, the cone gets stuck on the riser of the next stair and he can't move, but he doesn't have the sense to ease back.

All of which mean someone has to go rescue him.

Usually the one who works from home all day.

That would be me.

 

Do you think my editor will accept "but the dog ate my manuscript" to explain missing a deadline?

---

Like most authors, Leah's always had stories revolving around in her head, talking to her late at night. College, marriage and raising a family had her pushing them aside until a conversation with her eldest son about how he needed to follow his dreams was thrown back at her. One year later Leah was thrilled to get her first contract for her sizzling romance Private Property from Samhain Publishing. In January 2010, the reviewers at The Romance Studio nominated Private Property for a CAPA award for "Best Erotic Romance." Leah was also nominated in the "Best Erotic Romance Author" category. Reviewers have since awarded her books numerous Top Pick and Recommended Reads designations along with another CAPA nomination for Deliberate Deceptions as "Best Contemporary Romance of 2011." Look for her upcoming release, Hidden Heat, book 4 in the Hauberk Protection series, on May 1. You can find out more about Leah's books on her website, or you can follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

I recently spent 11 days in Kona, Hawaii with my husband and fellow adventurer. 

The beautiful Big Island is rimmed with rugged lava shores, making it less attractive to those who insist on sandy beaches. But, more attractive to those of us who love to spy on the inhabitants of Hawaii's turquoise oceans.

Yes, there are lovely beaches here–Hapuna is one of the prettiest stretches of white sand you'll find in the tropics. Great place to stroll with your toes in the sand, play in the surf and toast your skin a darker shade of gold. You can body surf at Magic Sand Beach, watch turtles at Black Sand Beach.

But the predominantly rocky shores of this newest of the islands mean there is less sand rolling in the surf, and thus the water is clearer–better for snorkeling and diving. Ah, bliss. The islands are surrounded by coral reefs, full of a dazzling array of tropical fishes, eels, turtles, and even dolphins and … sharks.

 

Read More

I don't watch a lot of TV or movies. The habit of not watching began back when our children were little and there was nothing on the TV except for 1 1/2 channels–living in the boonies can be a great motivator to find other ways to entertain yourself. Especially when the 1 channel that's clear is the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) in French.

I don't speak French.

But what I do, apparently, is tell stories. When the children were little I would tell them stories while we did things around the house and yard. I'd tell stories to distract them on the looooong drive into town to do groceries. And when we started taking them hiking and canoeing and on other adventures into the wilderness, I'd tell stories to keep their little legs moving farther than they thought they could possibly go.

I made up tales to distract my daughter when I had to comb out yet another tangle in her hair. Explaining how the Knotty Monster was the one who mischievously caused all the troubles kept her from wiggling or crying as I worked for far longer than any five year old should have to sit still.

I'm still telling stories.

These days I have to wait to see the reactions from the people who I'm trying to entertain. I'm not sure if they've picked up my book to distract themselves from a moment of personal crisis, or are just looking for a way to relax after a hard day. It's still story telling, and somehow, the same things I always put into the tales for my children go into the stories I share in books.

That good will win, that some times hard things happen, but we can move on and become stronger. That there is a happily-ever-after to be looked for. That somewhere, if we look for it, there is magic to be found in the world.

I'm glad I'm a storyteller.

~~**~~

Vivian has 26 books on the shelf here at Samhain (some ebook, some print) and she's working on the next 26 because she can't stop telling stories. You can find her as well at a lot of other places, including this coming week at the Romance Times Conference in  Chicago. Book signing Saturday, April 14. For more information, check out Viv's blog: 

Vivian Arend: Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads