All Too Well

Welp, I was going to jump into finishing a somewhat lighthearted scene in the new book. Unfortunately, I decided to put in my earphones and really listen to Taylor Swift’s new long version release of All Too Well. Here’s the thing. I’m 63 years old...

Sex, Drugs, and the Lost Art of Foreplay

One of the best love scenes I’ve ever read in a romance novel described a man simply taking a woman’s hand to help her out of a car.  By the time the four paragraphs were over, I would have ripped his clothes off myself, had I been the heroine.  He didn’t say a word...

The Me You Can’t See

My mother was a sociopathic, abusive person. I am sure that there were other issues, and I am still working through what they could have been.  But the bottom line is this – she did not love me.  She never showed in any way that I was other than a nuisance at best and...

Kissing Books

I was a guest on a podcast recently, ostensibly to discuss my books in general, but the sexy parts in particular.  As we talked, two aspects of romance literature rose to the forefront of the conversation. One of the host’s first questions was “As a reader, what hooks...

Muu-muus, Caftans, and $900 Tee Shirts

Let me begin by saying that I am not a sleepwear connoisseur.  I literally sleep in whatever I have on when I finish typing that murder-followed-by-wall-sex passage at 2:45 am.  I have embraced the yoga pant, not because I want to fit in with the car line Karens, but...

Making Friends With the Things Under the Bed

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too.  They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” – Stephen King My current work in progress, The Perfect Hero, is a romantic psychological thriller.  I am discovering many new things in the process of this one that I have...

Alphaholes and Cinnamon Roles

Alphahole:  Noun.  Designation for a romance novel hero who can be, and frequently is, a jerk.  He’s borderline verbally abusive, and frequently trips over that line.  He uses angst, his past, his job, misunderstanding, possessiveness and protection as justifications...

Black and White

In my former Clark Kent life, I had a client that grew to be a friend.  Ella was about 27 years my senior, so she became something of a mother figure.  She would always slip in my office, even if she wasn’t there to see me professionally, and we would spend way too...

Surviving

This isn’t a post about books, or writing, or what’s coming next on my to-do list as an author.  This is a post about a very personal experience. My immediate family and I survived COVID. All five of us were diagnosed, ages 5-62.  We had varying degrees of mild to...