Winner– Marie Force giveaway!

First, I wanted to say thanks to Marie for hanging out with us this week and for the giveaway!  So without further ado, the winner of a copy of Fatal Affair is. . .

Patricia Camaioni!

(comment #9)

Patricia, Marie will be in touch with you soon via email to send you a copy of the e-book. For everyone else, you can find out more about Marie’s book at her website.

And just when you thought the giveaways were over. . . either tomorrow or Monday I’ll post another Q&A with a fabulous author who will be giving away a copy of her newest release (a book I think is great.)  Want a hint?  The book is listed in my recent reads column. . .  😉

Happy reading!

Marie Force is here–with a giveaway!

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**Please note: the giveaway is now closed. Winner will be announced shortly.

I’m so thrilled to welcome author Marie Force today!  Marie and I met at RWA San Francisco–we happened to be in the cab line together after the RITA awards and shared a cab back to our hotel.  We got to talking about how we both wrote contemporary romances–this was before either of us was published–and I’d been looking forward to reading her books ever since.

Today, Marie is here to talk about her new book, Fatal Affair, a romantic suspense that just released yesterday and is available from Carina Press.

I was lucky to get my hands on an early copy of Fatal Affair and really enjoyed it!  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, while I’m working away at the revisions for A Lot Like Love, it was nice to have a book like this to sink into at the end of the day.

So without further ado, here’s Marie to tell us more about the book and her writing process:

Thanks for having me today, Julie!

Q. When did you first realize you wanted to write, and how did you get started?

A.  I’ve always been a writer. I knew very early on that I wanted to write for a living and was directed to journalism school by my high school English teacher. Since graduating from college (in, ahem, 1988), I’ve always worked as a writer of some sort, including a stint as a newspaper reporter. Today, I’m the communications director for a national membership organization similar to RWA. The fiction writing came a little later. I always said I was going to write a book, but in the early 2000s, I had two small kids, a husband in the Navy who was constantly deployed, a full-time job I did (and continue to do) from home, and, at that time, two dogs. It was all I could do to function, let alone write. Someday kept getting pushed further into the future. Then my mother got sick, and it became quite urgent for me to do more than talk about writing a book. She got to read the first four chapters of my first book before she passed away in August of 2004. I’ll always be grateful that she got to read that much. Since then, my writing “career” has really blossomed. I like to think she had something to do with that.

Q.  What is it about writing romance that appeals to you?

A.  I love the HEA: the guaranteed happily ever after. No matter what we put our hero and heroine through, the readers know their story will end happily. To me, that’s the best part of the romance “formula,” if you will, and it’s the reason I read and write romance.

Q.  What do you do on those writing days when you’re stressed, worn out, or distracted?

A.  I am always all of the above! LOL! Since I have a full-time job and have to fit my writing in around work and two very busy kids, who will be 15 and 12 this year, my writing time is my de-stress time. I write in the midst of chaos, right in the living room with kids and dogs running through and the TV on. I’ve discovered it’s all about the chaos for me. When I get into a quiet hotel room for a work trip, absolutely no writing gets done.

Q.  What can you tell us about your current release?

A.  Fatal Affair, out yesterday from Carina Press, is the start of the Fatal Series, which features a Washington, D.C. Police detective and her love interest, a U.S. Senator. I have lots of adventures planned for Sam and Nick. Their story will continue later this year in Fatal Justice, the second book in the series. Here’s a brief rundown on the story:

On the morning of the most important vote of Senator John O’Connor’s career he is late—again. His best friend and chief of staff, Nick Cappuano sets off to O’Connor’s apartment expecting to roust him from bed and hoping he is alone. But what Nick finds is that O’Connor, the handsome, amiable Senator from Virginia, has been brutally murdered, and Nick’s world comes crashing down around him. Complicating the disaster, the detective assigned to the case is none other than Sam Holland, Nick’s one-night stand from six years earlier, the woman who broke his heart and haunts his dreams. With six years worth of unfinished business hanging between them and more than a few scores to settle personally and professionally, Nick and Sam set out to find the senator’s killer while trying—and failing—to resist the overwhelming attraction between them that seems to have only grown over the years.

It soon becomes clear that the senator’s past holds secrets that not only led to his death but now endanger Nick and Sam as well. Working together to find a killer and to rediscover the love they thought they lost long ago, they must put the past behind them and build a future that offers a world of new opportunities for both of them—including an offer from the Virginia Democrats for Nick to finish the last year of John’s term.

Q.   Can you share a brief excerpt from the book?

“Why haven’t you ever gotten married?” Sam asked Nick.

“I don’t know. Just never happened.”

“Surely there had to have been someone you might’ve married.”

“There was this one girl…”

“What happened?”

“She never returned my calls.”

Shocked and speechless, Sam stared at him.

“You asked.”

Tearing her eyes off him, she accelerated through the last intersection before the turn for the public safety parking lot. “Don’t say that to me,” she snapped. “You don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do.”

Q.  Fun questions:  What are you watching on TV these days?  What are you reading?

A.  I’m engrossed in my not-so-secret shame: The Bachelorette. It’s also Red Sox season, and I watch most of their games. Otherwise, not much T.V. watching gets done this time of year. I just read a fun book called Something About You, which I loved! And I devoured Christy Reece’s heart-pounding new romantic suspense, Last Chance, over the weekend. I’ve also been reading a lot of historicals this year (and I’m secretly writing one…) I guess it’s not a secret anymore!

Q.  What are you listening to on your Ipod?

A.  Lately, I’m addicted to the various versions of Jeff Buckley’s song Hallelujah. My current favorite is the k.d. lang version from the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. If you haven’t heard it, make sure to download it. It’s amazing! My new laptop came with a free iPod Touch, so I’m looking forward to upgrading from my first generation Nano. My daughter will have to teach me how to use the Touch since I had trouble turning it on!

Q.  What is your biggest weakness (shoes, purses, chocolate, etc.)?

A.  Chocolate. Hands down. Although I do so love my Coach purses. 🙂

Q.  Complete this sentence: One fun thing about me that people might not know is……

A.  For a brief shining moment recently, my teenaged daughter declared that her mom was the bomb.com. It was a proud moment in the midst of teenager mayhem. Sadly, however, my status was revoked a mere 12 hours later for some infraction or another. You have to take the accolades where you can get them!

_________________

A-ha!  Another person addicted to The Bachelorette. . . it’s my guilty secret, too. 🙂  Thanks for joining us, Marie!  And for all of you, one lucky person who leaves a comment or question below will receive a copy (e-book) of Fatal Affair.  The giveaway will remain open until 10pm CST on Friday, June 25th.  More information about Marie Force and her books can be found at her website.

Good luck!

Fun with Revisions (and a mini-rant)

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So I’m plugging along with the revisions for A Lot Like Love. . .

I’ve finished revising the first half of the book and it hasn’t fallen apart yet, so that’s good.  Actually, I’m really liking the changes–it’s amazing how stepping away from a manuscript for a few weeks can give you a new perspective on things.  Among other things, I changed the first kiss.  Important to get that one right–the first kiss says a lot, doesn’t it?

On another note, I’ve received all sorts of great news from my editor this week. Both Just the Sexiest Man Alive and Practice Makes Perfect have gone into a third printing, and Something About You is about to go into a second printing after only three months. Yippee!  And I have other news about Berkley, but, well, the superstitious side of me won’t say anything until everything is final.  But things are good on the publishing front. : )

And more fun stuff: I was lucky to receive an advance copy of Fatal Affair by Marie Force, one of the books being released by Carina Press as part of its June launch.  I just started the book and am really enjoying it so far. It’s great to have a good book to turn to after a long day of revisions!

Finally, on a totally random note, is anyone else watching So You Think You Can Dance this season?  Usually, I really look forward to SYTYCD as one of my fun summer shows, but I’m not liking the changes they made this season.  Still haven’t figured out the point of bringing back the “all stars”.  They don’t actually compete, they don’t choreograph the routines, so they’re just kind of… stand ins.  Plus, it means there were nine less spots for people who are actually competing, people for whom this competition actually matters.  Humph.

Okay, end of rant.

And don’t even get me started on the Lost and 24 series finales.  Although at least Lost has this going for it:

How about you guys?  What are you reading? Watching? Got any books/television shows/movies you want to rant about?

Your Questions Answered, Part 2

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I hope everyone is having a lovely Memorial Day weekend!

Now, on to more of your questions. . . (in case you missed Part 1, I’m answering questions readers posed to me in an earlier blog):

Q.  While the sexual tension between the H&H in “Practice Makes Perfect” and “Something About You” is certainly equal in it’s intensity, the later and most recent book is more sexually explicit. Did you find the more graphic love scenes more difficult to write?

A.  Yes and no.  Because there was a suspense subplot to Something About You, it felt right for the love scenes to be more intense and descriptive.  But I did drink wine while writing those scenes.  : )

Q.  In Practice Makes Perfect, was the socioeconomic differences between the upbringing of the hero and heroine planned out or was it something that just developed?

A.  That was planned.  On the outside, I wanted Payton and J.D. to seem like polar opposites.  But once they start to get to know each other, they realize they have a lot more in common than they’d originally thought.

Q.  In Something About You, I often wondered how the trial turned out…if Jack got his vindication?

A.  Actually, the Martino case continues in my next book, A Lot Like Love.  That book centers around an undercover investigation into a wealthy nightclub and restaurant owner who is laundering money for Martino.  Both Cameron and Jack have supporting roles in the story.

Q.  I just want to know ii it’s based on real events…
and if you’ll have a movie adaptation of your novels, what director would you prefer?

A.  The idea for Practice Makes Perfect is very loosely based on my experience working at my former firm.  There was a male associate in my group who was the same year as me, and because my group had never before made two associates partner in the same year, I often wondered what would happen when he and I came up for consideration.  From there, my overactive imagination ran wild.

As for what director I would prefer in the movie adaptation of my novels. . . my answer is the one who is most likely to get the film made. : )

Q.  How would you rate your books? PG, PG 13? R? X?

A.  I would say that Just the Sexiest Man Alive and Practice Makes Perfect are PG-13, and Something About You is R-rated.

There are a few remaining questions, which I’ll get to next week. On a different note, I just finished Dark Lover (book 1 in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series), which I enjoyed.  Now I’m curious about Zsadist’s story–oh, and Darius.  Luckily I already own the next two books in the series.  : )

I just started my book club book, The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard.  A mystery set in a small town in Kansas, but that’s all I really know so far.

How about the rest of you?  What are you reading?