Author Michele Hauf has put a twist on the usual paranormal story in her latest book from Silhouette Nocturne , His Forgotten Forever: her hero has forgotten that he’s a vampire! Michele talks about just what could go wrong when a vampire has amnesia…

By Michele Hauf, author of His Forgotten Forever

An amnesiac vampire?

Wouldn’t it be a surprise — if you were the one with amnesia — and suddenly got back the memory that, in order to survive, you must drink the blood from humans. Yikes!

I had to do this to my latest hero, Truvin Stone. Torture him by taking away his memory, then giving it back to him after he’d tasted how good life could be. You see, Truvin was the villain in the previous novel in the Bewitching The Dark series, KISS ME DEADLY. I fell in love with him in that story, despite his evil ways, and knew I had to write his story. Hey, beneath every bad boy is a misunderstood man waiting for rescue. But salvation can never come without a little suffering!

There are many stories about amnesia on the bookshelves. I do like a good ole ’so that’s who I used to be?’ story. But I think a lot of times, we look at the whole phenomenon of amnesia from a tainted perspective. We know our memories. So we know what we’d miss.

This is what interests me most about amnesia: If you no longer have your memories, then you don’t know what to miss. You don’t remember having a family. So why would you pine to know if you had one? Well, sure, you’d wonder, but it wouldn’t be a relentless need to know. Same with having had a lover or husband or wife. Unless you’ve a wedding band on your finger, your first thought is not going to be for who is missing from your life. It is a concept that wouldn’t even occur to you. You don’t know what your career used to be, so worrying about what work you’re missing isn’t an issue, either. You’re simply trying to navigate in a world without ties, no bank account (or no idea where that account is), perhaps no home, and certainly no friends.

You can absolutely begin anew if you are not wondering over past issues. It’s stepping forward into a new world. A very unsure and dangerous step, to be sure. You don’t know what you’ve done in the past, so who knows what nefarious creatures or bad deeds will rise again to force you to want to learn what you were once like.

So back to Truvin. He knows he’s lost all memory of his life, yet not the world about him. This is easy to accept because he doesn’t know to angst over what he cannot know is missing. He begins to move ahead. Yet, the scent of blood troubles him. Rather, it attracts him. And then there are the witches chasing him. And the priest who forcefully baptized him. Yeah, you read that one right. Truvin has no clue why anyone would want to baptize him. But when he discovers the truth? This vampire had better get his memory back – fast — before all the misdeeds of his past kill him.

~Michele

Read the first chapter of HIS FORGOTTEN FOREVER at Michele’s website!

How do you mix romantic suspense with alien abduction? NYT bestselling paranormal romantic suspense author Kat Martin discusses the inspiration behind her newest book, Season of Strangers (MIRA)…

By Kat Martin, author of Season of Strangers

I’ve always been interested in U.F.O’s. When a story began in my head that dealt with unidentified flying objects and alien abduction, I told myself I didn’t dare chance writing something like that. But as with all intriguing tales, it kept nagging and nagging until I had to put it down on paper.

And so it was that my newest paranormal romantic suspense, Season of Strangers came about.
I did a ton of research for this book. I dug out the latest information on space travel and how close we are to being able to leap through hyper-space, as a UFO would do. The information on alien abduction was spine-chilling and entirely too believable. More reason to write the book!

Over the years, I have written a number of romantic suspense novels based on the idea of ordinary women who have extraordinary experiences. In my current series, that is what happens to social worker, Elizabeth Conner, in Scent of Roses, a ghost story; and also to Autumn Sommers in The Summit, when she begins to dream about a lost little girl.

In Season of Strangers, Julie Ferris, a real estate agent, discovers that she and her sister are missing several hours of time. When Laura begins having bouts of paranoia and begins to claim she was abducted by aliens, Julie thinks her hypochondriac sister has gone completely out of her mind.

Then odd things begin to happen. Most striking, the mysterious, life-altering change Julie’s sinfully handsome boss, Patrick Donovan, a dedicated womanizer heavily involved in drugs and alcohol, makes practically overnight.

Such a drastic change seems almost humanly impossible. Surely it was the heart attack his cocaine use brought on. Or is Laura right and a man from outer space is using Patrick’s body?

It is all wildly disturbing, and to make matters worse, Julie is falling in love with this new Patrick. As their relationship deepens, Julie begins to ask herself–am I losing her heart? Or my mind?

I always write lots of sex and romance in my stories and in that way, this one is no different. It is, however, a wild and unusual story. I would like to read more of these outer space adventures. Does anyone out there agree?

~Kat

With All Souls’ Night, Book Four of the Blood Ties series, Jennifer Armintrout wraps up the gripping saga of doctor-turned-vampire Carrie Ames and her eternal fight against evil.  We asked Jennifer to tell us what readers can expect from the final installment…

By Jennifer Armintrout, author of Blood Ties Book Four: All Souls’ Night

Hello, people out there in blogland! Hey, my new book is out, you should buy it! Not to be pushy or anything, but I do have a kid who’ll need college tuition some day.

Another really good reason to pick it up is that Blood Ties Book Four: All Souls’ Night wraps up the Blood Ties series completely.

Okay, maybe not completely. I do have a couple more ideas up my sleeve for Carrie, Nathan and the gang, but for right now, this is the end of the series. It’s the final showdown between good and evil, and it’s time for all of the characters to reconcile themselves to the fact that they’re really, pitifully outnumbered.

It’s also time for some old friends to return, and a new one to be introduced. And of course, there is gore. Much gore. I don’t like to brag or spoil anything for anyone, but zombies. Being attacked by werewolves. That statement alone can sell the book better than anything else I can say.

So, if you’re in the market for some thrilling action and you’ve already gone to see Iron Man this summer, then I think you have no choice but to check out Blood Ties Book Four: All Souls’ Night. If you haven’t read any of my other fine offerings in the Blood Ties series, such as Blood Ties Book One: The Turning, Blood Ties Book Two: Possession or Blood Ties Book Three: Ashes To Ashes, you’ll probably want to read those first, so you’ll know what’s going on in Book Four. And also, that college tuition thing I mentioned earlier.

~Jennifer

To learn more about Dr. Carrie Ames and the Blood Ties series, join Jennifer Armintrout in the eHarlequin.com Community this week, June 16-20, as she blogs and chats in character!

How does a pilot become a paranormal - slash - romance - slash - sci fi author? Author Susan Grant (Moonstruck) shares her inspiration for her out-of-this-world novels…

By Susan Grant, author of Moonstruck (HQN)

I’m often asked how a commercial airline pilot ended up writing romance. “Easy,” I say. “Too little time on the ground coupled with way too much time to think!” Trust me, nothing aids plot-hatching and character-developing like fifteen straight hours stuck in the cockpit of a 747 with lukewarm coffee and a sky so black you can see every star in the Milky Way.

The sights, smells, and tastes of the exotic locales I visit, and the conversations I have with people I’d never normally meet, provide the most amazing material to weave into my stories. With a little imagination, a dark alleyway in Shanghai ripe with the stench of sewage, garlic, and moped exhaust becomes a lawless, backwater planet in the Borderlands, a region in the stars where my newest series takes place. A Chinese restaurant where I nibbled on pickled jelly fish, stir-fried fungus, and sautéed morning glory transforms into dinner-for-two with a warlord on a distant planet. Sometimes I think I have the perfect “day” job for a paranormal author.

When I’m not a jet-lagged daydreamer wandering around Sydney, Shanghai or Saigon soaking in ideas for new stories, I’m a suburban mom raising two teens. When they were much younger I used to bring them, and usually the neighbor boy, too, to the local park to play . One day the boys ran off, each clutching a laundered-too-many-times Beanie Baby (the only two toys in the car), leaving my daughter empty-handed. “But, Mom,” she said, grief-stricken. “Now I have no one to be!”

To be…

Whoa. Simple words, but what a concept! My daughter, with the boundless, easily accessed imagination of a child, intended to be a Beanie Baby, slipping into the fluffy body of a kitten, or duck, or crocodile to live through its eyes. And, boy, did I understand her disappointment. That’s exactly how I feel when I open a book and can’t lose myself in it, when I’m unable, for some reason, to form that seamless emotional connection with the characters that allows me to live the story right along with them.

Think of the books on your keeper shelf. What made them so special the first time you read them? Did they engross you to the point where when you turned the last page you looked up blinking because you forgot who and where you were? Did they sweep you away to another time, another place, another body? Then those authors succeeded in giving you someone to be.

If you’d like to come along on some of my flying adventures, visit my blog and check out the archives. No luggage required! Oh, and for a peek at the stories these adventures have spawned over the years, stop by my website, www.susangrant.com, where I maintain a printable list of all my books and what series they belong to.

~Susan

By Jenny B, Digital Content Manager

Still working on that Nocturne Bites submission?  Check out this eHarlequin.com article, chock full of tips on what to do and what not to do when writing a paranormal romance short story! 

(Or, refresh your memory by reviewing the writing guidelines, or these tips from the editor herself!)

Best of luck with your writing endeavours!

Demon-hunters + Cowboys = hot paranormal romance! Lisa Renee Jones, author of the Knights of White miniseries from Silhouette Nocturne, shares the inspiration behind her latest title, Return of the Beast (Silhouette Nocturne Bites)…

By Lisa Renee Jones, author of Return of the Beast and Beast of Darkness

When my editor called me about writing a Nocturne Bite, I was in a UHAUL moving from Texas to New York. Leaving Texas behind was an emotional roller coaster, and during the drive, I was replaying in my head all the things I was going to miss about my home state. So it was easy to say, I wanted this Nocturne Bite to be ALL TEXAS, and it seemed only appropriate that my Nocturne Bite feature a REAL COWBOY — I have learned they don’t have many of them in New York! I am amazed at how cowboy-deficient this state is! Boy, am I glad I have my Texas memories to cling to!

And from those memories came Return of the Beast, my June Nocturne Bite. Return of the Beast features a hero nicknamed “Ryder,” a name he was given for his ability to tame even the wildest of horses. Ryder works as the horse trainer at the Brownsville, Texas, horse ranch that The Knights of White use as a cover for their Demon-hunting operation. Something inside Ryder tells him to go home, back to Round Rock, Texas, where he first became a Knight of White, to the place he himself was attacked by a Demon. It is here that he finds the Demons are again preying on innocents, and one of those innocents is a woman who will change his life. Ryder is about to be tamed — if he dares allow such a thing!

Of course, the entire Knights of White series is based upon the Texas Legend of Matamoros Monsters, aka Demons. You can find that legend at http://www.theknightsofwhite.com/the-legend/. Texas is at the heart of the Knights of White, and that will never change, because much of my heart is still in Texas as well. In fact, my July Nocturne, Beast of Darkness, takes place in the haunted Texas town called “Nowhere.” The hero is a three-hundred-year-old, Harley-loving, bad boy, with roots in England, but who now calls Texas home.

Beast of Darkness is a wild ride, complete with ghosts, Demons, magic, and a whole lot of action-packed danger. Add a really hot romance, and it is perhaps my favorite Nocturne to date that I have written. That said, the fun thing about writing a Nocturne Bite, from a writer’s perspective, was the chance to do something a little different and focus more on the romance and characterizations and let those things drive the story. I really had fun writing Return of the Beast, and I hope readers will enjoy it, too!

As for the future of The Knights of White – Book 4 is CAPTIVE BY THE BEAST. The hero, Rinehart, travels to a secret military island to save a group of humans with XMEN-type gifts that the Beasts hope to clone for their own use. This story will leave you with a slight cliffhanger related to the characters in the next book BEAST OF FIRE. BEAST OF FIRE will give away major secrets regarding Marisol and Rock’s story, and yes, they will FINALLY get their story in book 6 – tentatively titled HEALED BY THE BEAST!

I really hope you enjoy Return of the Beast, and I can’t believe it but Beast of Darkness will go live on the Harlequin page June 1 as well!

Here’s wishing you many an exciting summer read!

~Lisa Renee Jones

What if there really were faeries in this world? We asked Pamela Palmer, author of The Dark Gate and Dark Deceiver (Silhouette Nocturne), to share her thoughts on finding the heart of a legend…

By Pamela Palmer, author of Dark Deceiver

I’ve heard it said that every legend has, at its heart, a kernel of truth. Now the ‘truth’ may be as simple as, yes, there was once a great Saxon warrior by the name of Arthur. Did he live in Camelot, have a magician as a friend, and sit at a round table? Hard to say since there were no video cameras or even literate witnesses around at the time to record the details. When it comes to oral history, it’s a near certainty that facts are going to get embellished, misinterpreted, or flat out changed to suit the storyteller. As my beloved grandmother used to say, “Why should I tell it the way it happened when I can make it so much more interesting?” (Guess where I got my talent for making up stories?)

The legends of the faeries and elves are a good illustration of how legends morph and change. In most of the original tales, faeries and elves were the size of humans, decidedly wingless, and generally dangerous. Over the generations, that perception’s changed to the point where modern culture portrays them as benevolent tiny winged creatures or pointy-eared dwarfs.

I’m a daydreamer, I’ve always been a day dreamer, but I’m also an intensely logical person. So, several years ago when I stumbled upon a book of ancient faerie beliefs, I got to thinking. What if there was actually a kernel of truth in these old legends? What if, long, long ago, there really were faeries in this world? My logical mind promptly took over and started firing off questions. What happened to them? Why were they here? Why aren’t they here any more? How, over the centuries, have the original facts been twisted and changed as original facts always are? And, best of all, what would I do if suddenly faced with irrefutable fact that the creatures at the heart of the legends had returned? Creatures that were not cute little Tinkerbells, but man-sized, malevolent, and bent on the enslavement of the human race?

And so the Esri were born. In Book 1 of the series, The Dark Gate, the first Esri in fifteen centuries finds his way back into the human realm and wreaks havoc on modern day Washington, D.C. The hero and heroine have to accept the impossible in order to stop him, and come to realize there’s truth in the old legends after all. In Book 2, I flip that realization a bit when one of the Esri, a dangerous, dark-haired, part-human known as the Punisher, infiltrates the human realm to destroy the only humans who can stop the Esri invasion, only to realize humans are a far cry from the mindless creatures his own legends have portrayed. One human, in fact, steals his heart and changes his understanding of everything he’s known, including himself.

So, here’s my question to you. What legend or story or fairy tale would you most love (or hate) to discover was real? What idea excites you or terrifies you the most? Anything from vampires to Atlantis to Star Trek’s Federation of Planets. Happy imagining!

~Pamela

For much more on Pamela’s Esri series, including excerpts, character bios, and laws of the world, visit www.pamelapalmer.net. 

We asked Lori Devoti, author of  Wild Hunt, the third in the Unbound series from Silhouette Nocturne, about what readers can expect from book three, and what inspires her as a paranormal romance writer…

By Lori Devoti, author of Wild Hunt (Silhouette Nocturne)

What can readers expect from this novel? Romeo and Juliet. It’s that simple and far more complicated.

Wild Hunt  is the story of two individuals (Venge and Geysa) who are fated to be enemies because of what they are—hellhound and Valkyrie. Beyond their historic differences are their opposite goals. Geysa wants to stop the Wild Hunt because it killed her mother. Venge wants to control the Hunt so he can kill his father. Two more opposite goals and motivations couldn’t exist, but at their core Venge and Geysa are very similar. Neither feels they “fit” with their own kind. Neither loves or really accepts who they are, and both need someone who does accept them, who can appreciate them for themselves—see them, not as a Valkyrie or as a hellhound.

So, Wild Hunt is the story of Romeo and Juliet and self-acceptance. Maybe all of my books are about self-acceptance…I’d have to think about that!

Wild Hunt is also the continuing story of the Unbound world. Characters from books one and two reappear, and we learn a bit of what has happened in their lives. We learn more about hellhounds in general, how they live and get along (or not) as a group. We also meet two strong all-female beings, Valkyries and Norn, and get a bit of a glimpse into their world. And perhaps my favorite part of the book, we get to see the Wild Hunt in action and witness the Valkyries in all their original glory gather forces to stop it.

Wild Hunt is probably my favorite of the three books so far in this series. And I think that boils down to characters. They care intensely about protecting the things they love (or come to discover they love). It made me love them in return. I hope it does the same to you.

I have been reading fantasy novels my entire adulthood. However, I think my influences for the Unbound series started way before that–stuck in the backseat of a Ford Galaxie on a sticky hot Southern Missouri night while my parents watched Charles Bronson, John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood on the big drive-in screen. I can even think of a few episodes of Gunsmoke (on a much smaller screen) that stuck with me.

This may seem like a strange reply since I do not write Westerns (although Wild Hunt is set in an old west ghost town), but to me the Unbound world isn’t really about the “Nine Worlds,” and hellhounds and dark elves—it’s about the characters and the bigger than life sacrifices they are willing to make to do what they see as right. It’s about emotional intensity. It’s about caring for someone or something besides yourself. That to me is the Unbound world—and it wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t grown up knowing that sometimes you have to willing to challenge someone to “make your day” because some things are just that important.

~Lori

By Maggie Shayne, author of Lover’s Bite

Dear Readers,

It’s almost overwhelming how much life has changed for me since I wrote Lover’s Bite, (on sale now) and its sequel, ANGEL’S PAIN (on sale October 1st). It was only days after I had mailed the complete manuscript of the latter to my editor, while I was out for the evening, when tragedy struck at home. It began with something electrical, something shorted or arced or sparked. It might have been the DVD/VCR player, the investigators say. That seems to be the “hot-spot.” At any rate, the spark spread and grew, and my alarm system began to scream, and the local firefighters sped into action. I was actually on my way home, only a half hour away, as all of this was happening. I was traveling through a dead zone, so my cell phone wasn’t responding to the alarm company’s frantic calls. So the firemen had no way of knowing if I was in the house or not.

I wasn’t, of course. But my dogs were. Wrinkles was nearly fifteen, an English Bulldog. And Sally, the Great Dane, was eleven. My cat, Glory, (named for Glorificus, the Demon-Goddess from the second to the last season of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) was also home at the time.

I arrived home to see flashing lights and fire trucks, and thought there must be a car accident near my house. But only a few yards closer and I knew. I pulled my car into the first open spot I saw along the roadside, dove out of it, and ran across the road, jumping hoses, dodging firefighters, fumbling with my keys, and yelling, “My dogs! My dogs! My dogs!” over and over.

I got to the front door while a few firefighters noticed me among the melee of trucks and smoke. I unlocked it and raced inside, got about five feet along the narrow entry hall, before I was blinded and choking, and then a pair of strong arms lashed right around my waist and hauled me back out. Their owner, a firefighter, told me sternly that I could not go in there. And I said, my dogs are in there, and turned right around to try again, and again, he yanked me back out, and promised to go find the dogs. He went to get someone to go in with him, because they’re not allowed to go alone, I guess, and I went around back thinking I could get in that way and maybe it wouldn’t be so smoky and I could find my dogs. A fireman followed me, though, and again I was stopped.

At the front door again, I shouted guidance, knowing where the bulldog would be. She sleeps in the little ground floor bathroom. It’s really her room, not used for anything else.

So I told them where she would be as they crawled on hands and knees through the thick smoke, and in a few minutes one of the men came out again, carrying a chubby white body in his arms like he’d carry a baby, and she was clearly dead. He took off his mask after her laid her down and I still don’t know if the tears in his eyes were from the smoke, or seeing such a special dog that way.

A few minutes later, two more men came out carrying Sally, because one could never have managed it. I just sank to my knees in the snow where they laid them, and hugged them and cried. The firemen came and covered them up with blankets for me. The dogs didn’t suffer any burns. It was the carbon monoxide. Wrinkles, it seems, never even woke up from her nap (she spent most of her time sleeping these days). She was right in her usual spot. Sally had run upstairs, the worst thing to do, of course, as smoke rises. But she didn’t even make it all the way down the hall toward the bedroom. So it was fast.

I sat there sobbing in the snow, feeling like the world was ending. But then another firefighter came to me, and when I turned I saw that he had my cat in his arms, and she was alive and fighting mad. I took her and hugged her to me, and felt the first glimmer of relief. Together we went to the car, where we waited until the firefighters got the place safe enough to enter, and the investigators arrived, and allowed me to walk back through the house, while asking me endless questions. And after seeing the utter destruction of Serenity, my home, and just about everything that had been inside it, I was finally allowed to leave. Sooty, with nothing by my car, my purse, and my cat, I went to my oldest daughter’s for what was left of the night. And I knew that my life changed forever.

And, as luck would have it, two days later, I hit a deer and smashed up my Murano. Sheesh! (Luck had nothing to do with it. I was so focused on the negative that more negativity was all I could attract.)

Gradually, though, I got over the shock, and got back in touch with who I am. I’m an optimist. I’m unshakable, unflappable, unstoppable, and always have been. I got a room at a B&B nearby. I hired a crew to come in and demolish and gut my house. One room, my office, survived almost intact. The same crew cleaned that office, and helped me set it up as an apartment. A plumber got the pipes working to the attached bathroom. An electrician made sure its wiring was safe and connected. The phone company came, the Dish Network people came, the Internet people came, and after two weeks, I moved in. Because I needed to be home, even if only in a small piece of it.

Every day of that time in between, I donned safety glasses and a face mask, and joined the crew in the demo work. I worked alongside them all day, every day, (except weekends) working just as hard as anyone on the crew. It was therapeutic to be doing something.

As I write this it’s been three months since the fire. The gutting and cleaning work is done, the possessions we could save have been cleaned and stored. There weren’t a lot of them. I’m living like a college student in a dorm room, with a mini-fridge and microwave, taking my clothes to the laundromat to wash them. I’m living on Healthy Choice and Smart Ones frozen dinners, breakfast cereal with soy milk, and yogurt. Oh, and V-8 Juice to make sure I get my required servings of veggies.

And believe it or not, life is good. Today I finally got my building permit, so by the time you’re reading this, the rebuilding will have actually, finally begun! Serenity is going to be better than she ever was. Everything new, everything made over to fit my precise vision. It’s almost like starting from scratch. The loss of the dogs was the hardest to take. But besides the dogs, I really didn’t lose anything at all. I was insured. And it was just stuff. You can’t take stuff with you. Stuff isn’t who or what you are. Stuff doesn’t make you or break you. It’s just . . . stuff.

They saved some of my clothes, though many others were destroyed by the smoke. I lost three computers, a digital camera, all my John Waterhouse Prints, some of which were on canvas, every stick of furniture on the ground floor with the exception of the little round breakfast nook table and its four chairs, and countless, endless personal things almost beyond measure. But I’m covered. And that’s good. And I’m unharmed, and that’s good. My dogs didn’t suffer, and I know they’re okay, and that’s good. The frame of the house, the roof, the basement, the structure itself, is still solid, and that’s very good. Everything else can be replaced.

I have no doubt this entire episode is going to show up, somehow, in some form, in future books. But bear in mind, none of this had happened as I was writing Lover’s Bite. I was going through a more personal crisis at that point, but it resolved itself, and is better than ever now. Just as I know this latest situation will be.

The first book I will have written, post-fire, will be titled BLOODLINE. It’ll be another vampire story, and we’re looking at May of 2009 for the release.

The other major change in my life, since the fire, is a little guy by the name of Dozer. I didn’t think I was ready for another dog just yet, but my daughters encouraged me to at least go and look at this litter of newborn English Mastiff pups, only an hour away. If I really fell in love, I figured I could put down a deposit, and it would still be two months before I could take the pup home, and by then, maybe I would be ready.

But when I got to the place where the puppies lived, I was introduced to this ten-week old male from another litter. He was unspoken for, and could go home with me that very day, if I wanted. And from the minute he first licked my face, there was absolutely no way I could leave that place without him. His presence here has brightened up my life considerably. Immeasurably, really. He’s an absolute joy, like having a 4000 watt bulb installed that radiates nothing but pure positive energy. It’s amazing.

A favorite saying of mine is, “You are where you are.” The thing is, you can be miserable where you are, or you can find ways to be happy there. It’s a choice. Either way, you are where you are. Being miserable, though, tends to keep you right there, or take you somewhere worse. Finding joy, tends to move you forward, toward where you want to be. So I’m finding joy. I found joy in Dozer, in the work that’s been done so far, in making plans for the work to come, and in enjoying every minute of every day.

Something good and empowering came from this event. I’ve always been a very positive person, and I’ve kept it through some pretty tough times, but I never knew, until now, that I could lose just about everything, and still find happiness and fulfillment and peace down deep inside me. It’s good to know that I don’t need my “stuff” to be happy. I can be happy in a dorm room. Or a tent, I think.

I haven’t overlooked the fact, that, on the night of the fire, those firefighters didn’t know if I was in the house or not. Therefore, they were doing everything they could to get in there and rescue anyone who might be inside. And even with all that, they didn’t get in fast enough to save the dogs. So if I had been there, and unable to get myself out, they wouldn’t have been able to save me. Clearly, that wasn’t meant to be just yet. But it sure does make me appreciate being alive even more. I don’t have even the slightest fear of crossing over. But there’s a whole lot here to enjoy in the meantime, and I intend to do so! I’m so not done yet.

Spring is here, at last in upstate N.Y. I have flowers growing in my gardens, and I just love spending time working on the flower beds and the lawn. I’m able to go running outside again, and that just makes me giddy with joy. Not to mention healthy! I picked the perfect time to train a dog, because I have nothing nice for him to ruin, and by the time I get anything nice, he should be pretty well trained. Now if that’s not a silver lining, I don’t know what is. And Glory is even starting to make friends. (She’s great with dogs—was best pals with Wrinkles and even loved Sally up every now and then.)

Lots of really good things are happening for me. I got the Murano fixed after hitting the deer, and the damage was covered, and the body shop threw in a free detailing, so it seems just like a brand new car.

Oh, and bigger than any of that, I was nominated for the RITA Award for DEMON’S KISS. This is my fifteenth nomination. I have one win under my belt, and I’d love another one, so those gorgeous golden statues can stand on either end of my mantle–once I get my mantle replaced, I mean. At least that golden statue, my prized possession, survived the fire. Thank goodness! And that has to be a good sign, right?

Lover’s Bite might be even better than its Rita-nominated predecessor. Topaz’s heartbroken scenes were real, as I was going through a breakup of my own while I wrote them. The joy of the ending was real, because I was kind of writing my own ending—the one I wanted–and almost as soon as I finished those pages, that was the ending I got. It manifested just the way I had imagined it and wanted it to, and I just love when magic like that happens. This is probably the most personal book I’ve ever written, though the details of the plot, naturally, are far different from what happened to me. It’s the emotion that came straight from my veins onto the page like never before. The romance, the intensity of it, the breakup, the reunion. Very personal stuff.

Next, comes ANGEL’S PAIN in October of this year, followed by BLOODLINE in May 2009.

Maggie’s Website www.maggieshayne.com
Maggie’s Group Blogs: www.storybroads.com
http://witchychicks.blogspot.com

Demon’s Kiss: 12/07
Lover’s Bite: 5/08
Angel’s Pain: 10/08
Bloodline: 5/09

Gena Showalter’s The Darkest Night is a phenomenon everywhere – even in Second Life! On Memorial Day weekend a book launch was held in the online virtual world to celebrate Gena’s Lords of the Underworld series. Here are some screenshots of the event:

The Darkest Night on display outside the event venue

You can read the book if you click on it!

Lots of fun was had by all…

Including Gena herself, via her avatar (on the left)!