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Category: My Books

The novels I’ve written and/or the characters in them.

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AOFM, also known as DH - my dear hubby, has worked his magic on one of my contemporaries that hasn't gotten enough attention.  It's a good book that needs more readers.  To attract readers, I first tried a name change.  The books was originally entitled "E-mail Enticement".  In retrospect, I think that one did sound a little like a legal textbook.  (Though not as much as the first title I wanted to give it, which was "Criminal Sexual Communication".)  Poor little E-mail didn't get much love.

Not so terribly long ago, I retitled it, thinking it would "entice" more interest.  The second title was:  "The Billionaire's E-mail Seduction."  Under that title, it garnered a little more love, but not much.  It cried out for more tweaking - something more drastic than just a new title.  E-mail demanded a new COVER. That meant that I needed to do a little enticing of my own - or a lot, as the case may be.  AOFM doesn't work cheap, you know - but then he's worth the best of everything.

Yesterday, my DH did a yummy new cover for "E-mail" and I can't wait for y'all to see it.  Did I mention that it's yummy?  Yep, that's right - I'm pushing books with the bare-chested hunks again.  After all, the goal of a cover is to get a reader to stop long enough to read the description and check out the sample and then - hopefully - to press the buy button.   But they won't buy if they don't stop long enough to look and I do believe my DH's new cover will get anyone who boogles by to stop, ogle, and check out the book.

The new title for E-mail - in keeping with our newly adopted theme - is "Dangerous Relations:  Seducing The Billionaire."  The theme or subtitle of "Dangerous Relations" will tie together all our contemporaries right where they take place - at the intersection of love and the law. 

Amazon got the new page and title for the book up by this morning, but I'm still waiting for the cover.  It's a lot like waiting for a baby to arrive - I know it'll be beautiful and I am way anxious to share. Don't forget to check it out because it's awesomely quackalicious - with a cherry on top!

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I enjoy reading historicals and I adore writing them.  But to me history is mood and it's part of the world I create for each book.  I can alter events, rearrange them or create them out of whole cloth.  In my books everything exists to advance the story so that it follows my muse's twisted inclinations. It'll be a winding road, but it will end happily, every time.  To get there I may create language, events or people that bear no relation to the history we learned in school.  Ultimately, in a QA tale, everything exists to serve the romance and that includes history.  That irritates the heck out of some folks, but I believe there are books enough to cater to every taste. 

Regardless of my history as mood philosophy, my historicals still far outsell my contemporaries.  In fact, overall in the romance world everywhere - historicals tend to far outsell contemporaries.  And that bothers me.  It bothers me a lot.  There are some great contemporary writers and some fabulous stories set in our very own era.  I like to think that some of those fabulous contemporaries, a couple of them to date, are mine.  And just like my historicals - my "now" is apt to look and feel a lot different because from over the top, everything looks better. 

I wish we could give contemporaries their own month.  Better yet, why not give them their own season.  Yes, I think Spring should be the era of now.

As we anticipate the "Spring Into A Contemporary" movement, we're sprucing up our contemporaries with brand new titles.  To be more accurate - we're adding a subtitle.  The change has already been made to one book - Griffin's is now - Dangerous Relations:  Griffin's Law.   We'll be changing the other one - now titled The Billionaire's E-mail Seduction -- shortly.  The covers of both books will catch up soon too. 

Why the change?  It came about because we were tinkering with the title of my WIP, which is - you guessed it - a contemporary.  I'd been calling it "The Office Ink" or "The Office Ink Spells Murder".  But while the book centers around a murder - it's mostly a romance.  This murder occurs at a family law firm.  After my dearest hubby suggested the subtitle, I realized that not only does it suit "Office Ink," it also suits all my contemporaries. 

My contemporaries are all focused on what happens when love intersects with the law.  Dangerous Relations describes events for the lovers and events surrounding the lovers.  It's a great "hook" for all of the books and we hope the "hook" reels in more readers to check out how now looks from over the top. 

We haven't settled on a firm title for E-mail yet.  Adding the subtitle to the front of E-mail would produce a title of unwieldy length.  It's current title is already a little wordy.  I'm thinking of "Dangerous Relations: Tempting The Billionaire" or "Dangerous Relations:  Seducing The Billionaire"  or "Dangerous Relations:  Enticing The Billionaire." But that title is still up in the air. 

I do hope that more readers will make it a point to pick up a contemporary - particularly one of mine!  It'll remind all of us that all the excitement, spark and sizzle of love didn't end with the Regency era.  Love is as timeless and eternal as forever. We may live in "now" rather than "then," but we still deserve a happy ending - and some quacking good fun reaching it. 

Join us at QA Romances this year and SPRING INTO A CONTEMPORARY!!!

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I've given "A Faerie Fated Forever" a facelift - at least on Amazon.  The changes will boogle over to B&N and Smashwords eventually, but the new version is bright and shiny and STILL FREE for Kindle.  Why isn't the new version available everywhere right now, you ask?  Because of the technical magic behind the scenes.  I can only work minor magic (tweaks I can make in Word). It takes my hubby, John the Magnificent, to work the high-grade magic Smashwords demands.

Right now, Faerie feeds out FREE to all the bookstores from Smashwords - except Amazon.  And the meat-grinder at SW is not for the faint of heart.  Sometimes even John the Magnificent has to tweak things a couple of times to satisfy the oh-so-exacting SW meat-grinder.  Like all wizards, John the Magnificent stays busy.  When he has time to direct his magic to the SW version of Faerie, we'll get it out there.   

The older "enlarged" version of Faerie also remains in the Forever Series Bundle on Amazon and elsewhere.  I may leave the enlarged version in the bundle.  It gives an incentive to buy the bundle because then it'll be the only place to read the full, original version.  (Inside every author building a platform marketing genes must grow - otherwise, the author's career won't grow either.) 

The edit to Faerie started with an email from the KDP maestros.  They said a customer had complained of spelling errors in the book and asked me to check it out.  The maestros didn't remove the book or do anything a'tall heavy-handed. They simply made a request.  The huge, hideous error pointed out in the email was that once (and it was only once) I used the word brown when it should have read brow.  Okay, that was snarky, wasn't it?  I have a little snark inside but I try never to feed it! Anyway, none of the spelling errors was major and in the original 100,000 word plus version I only found about 3 or 4 ( brown for brow, losses for looses, a missing e, and blond for blonde).  All were minor, but all are now fixed. 

The spelling "errors" were smaller than many I've run across in books published by the big houses, but that's no excuse really.  And my snarkiness is like a porcupine's quills - a defense mechanism.  Truthfully, if an error bothered a reader, then it should be fixed.  And it was.  But that's where the journey started.  While I was listening to readers, I recalled some of the book's reviews that complained it was too long.  So I turned a sharp eye to editing for length.

Some of my favorite events are missing from the new version, but they were things that kept Heather and Neil in England for a while after their reunion.  I loved those events because they confirmed that Neil and Heather loved each other.  But a goodly number of readers wanted the story to pace a little faster and now it does.  But it's not just the plot edits that pace the tale faster because I also edited for word choice.  I tightened the language and kicked more adverbs to the curb than I thought I knew.  But it turned out - when I wrote Faerie, I had a near Guiness Record setting mass of "adverbial knowledge."  I didn't just know the adverbs- I loved them in a deep and meaningless way. 

Yes, Virginia, you guessed the next part - I sprinkled a generous helping of my adverbial prowess in Faerie.  But undoubtedly, assuredly and categorically, I guarantee that the remaining adverbs are nearly absolutely necessary. 

Now that Faerie's had a facelift, I'd appreciate all y'all checking her out, especially if you read or reviewed the prior version.  It's my understanding that if you email Amazon, they'll let you download the new one even though the older version is still in your library.  Since Faerie is free, you have nothing to lose by checking out the new model.  If you like the story, you might pick up the Forever Series Bundle which will let you compare and contrast the new lean mean tale with the original gauzy, gaudy fuller version.  The Bundle is only $5.99 on Amazon.

Like I said, right now the trim, toned version of Faerie is an Amazon exclusive. Pick it up free for your Kindle or Kindle Fire (Or Kindle for PC - available as a free download from Amazon).  And be sure to quack back and let me know what you think because the changes to the story were made based on reader reviews and feedback.  See, I love y'all.  I really, really love y'all.  And just like any red-blooded romance heroine, I want y'all to love me back.

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It was a dark and stormy night on the last episode of Grey's that aired before the "mid-Winter break."  (BTW - how do you get a job where there's a mid-Winter break?  The couple of days the rest of us get off at Thanksgiving and Christmas don't nearly measure up to the length of these "breaks." ) The next new epi won't air until January 5, 2012. 

The last episode aired was titled "Dark was The Night" and there's a good summary here  and here to tickle your memory cells - if they need tickling.  Personally, I'm up for a good tickle most any time. But that's for another blog post entirely.  For this one, I'm doing one of my most favorite things - I'm donning my Swami Cap and guessin' Grey's.  Keep in mind, my POV is from way over the top and Sunshine Shonda Rhimes is as likely to have written things the way I see 'em as I am to win the powerball lottery.  Okay - it's more likely that I'll win the powerball.

The whole thing was dark and stormy.  Lots of bad things happened to the characters, with one of the worst undoubtedly being the death of Henry on the OR table during a fairly routine procedure while his wife, Teddy, was operating on an emergency patient.  So Teddy wasn't there when her hubby died and new-Chief Owen didn't tell her. By epi's end she still didn't know.  And Cristina didn't know the patient she was called to do a heart procedure on was Teddy's hubby.  She was rushing through becausec she'd been practicing for a procedure on her "dream list." And Owen didn't tell Cristina that the patient was Henry.  She found out after he died.

There was lots of trauma to go around.  Mer and Karev were called out to pick up a newborn infant who is having trouble breathing and must be transported to Seattle Grace.   On the way back the ambulance stalls on a narrow mountain road and a paramedic goes off to get help after warning Mer and Alex that if anything hits the ambulance it'll explode b/c of all the oxygen tanks.  The paramedic tells the pair to get out but neither will leave the baby. They're connected to the hospital for advice from Arizona who is in the middle of a procedure with Derek and Mark. Mark tells one of 'em to leave. Alex tells Mer to go but she refuses to leave the baby. While they argue, something hits the ambulance, they're thrown around and the OR loses the connection to the phone.

Der is finally struck by how much his wife means to him and he gets all jittery and teary and Jackson has to take over the surgery. (Maybe now he'll even stop trying to destroy Mer's career - you think?)  In the closing scene Alex and Mer crawl out of the ambulance - apparently okay - and see a car tipped over and dead bodies thrown around. It's a tough scene and yeah - I wonder what it portends.  Maybe I'll blog about those guesses later. The Duck Lady's over the top thoughts on that scene would likely be far more horrific than whatever Sunshine's crack writers dreamed up.

But that's not what this blog is about.  This is about the call Mer/Der got from the social worker indicating that she didn't think they'd get Zola.  She basically told 'em to move on.  Der tells Mer that it's not over - they'll fight for Zola or get another baby. But Mer refuses and says Zola was their baby and she's gone.  Mer says she doesn't want another one and for now McDreamy is feeling a little guilty that he pushed Mer towards motherhood before she was ready. 

But one way or another, the pitter patter of little McDreamy feet seems inevitable, doesn't it?  So - what route will the stork take to deliver a McDreamy bundle?

...continue reading "Grey Guesses: Tracking The Stork With The McDreamiest Bundle"

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This week over at Smart Bitches, SB Sarah summarized a recent conference (link may be down; understand they are doing some work on the site) she attended.  What caught my attention was the disagreement between Dr. Mary Bly, who writes as Eloisa James, and the President of the RWA (Romance Writer's Association) over a topic that - at first blush - seems very simple:  What is romance?

The RWA Prez had been judging a Food Network Romance Cakes cooking competition. She ruled out one of the finalists because it showed a married couple.  She said books featuring a married couple weren't romance novels. 

It's an interesting question.  What is romance? What books fit the genre?  I guess every reader and every writer has their own definition.  To me, a book is only a romance if it fits three key criteria. 

First and foremost AND forever, amen - to be a romance it must have a happy ending.  By that, I mean that by story's end the hero and the heroine must have committed themselves to more than a relationship. They must have committed themselves to each other forever.  (My definition of a happy ending is pretty strict for such a loosey goosey duck lady, isn't it?)

Second, the book must focus on the relationship between a couple. And third, the book must focus more on internal than external action.  It's both an exact and a very loose definition.  But I don't think every book that many consider a romance fits.  Several of Nicholas Sparks don't fit the definition because there's no HEA. Gabaldon's "Outlander" doesn't fit for the same reason. 

A romance novel is a tale of the heart.  Action, interaction, scenery and setting are window dressing. Emotion creates the story, emotion carries the story and emotion concludes the story.

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There are folks who pride themselves on being open-minded and accepting.  I like to consider myself one of those folks.  However, within the live and let live tribe, there are a bunch of members who only accept something if it meets their rules and regulations.  They think they're open-minded but in reality, they're the opposite.  These are people who only want to accept what they find acceptable.  Yes, Virginia, I'm talking about card-carrying members of the PC Police.  I'm gonna call 'em the PCP because I think the name fits.  Lord knows, they often act like they're high on something.   

Too many of them are reader-come-latelys.  Yeah, they might've been well-intentioned enough back when they started reading romance.  But they hung around with the wrong crowd.  They listened to the wrong sermons and soon enough, they started believing them.  And the young PCP converts were tapped as missionaries - sent out to convert others and convince them that the only good romance, the only acceptable romance was new romance.  Older romance was written in the wrong style with the wrong plot elements. 

Yes,  Kathleen Woodiwiss and Rosemary Rogers (guided by talented Avon Books editor Nancy Coffey) created a genre.  It wasn't a genre where you might pick up a book on occasion and read it.  It was a genre that compelled readers to buy another book so they could start it the second they finished the last.  It was a genre that incited and inspired a generation of women.  

Perhaps that was all very well - then.  And those women who devoured romance novels like Christmas candy?  Well, they didn't know any better. Besides, Woodiwiss and Rogers and the writers who learned from them were all the readers had.  But this is a new day.  There are a horde of writers who've learned the rules and write the proper stuff.  If a writer is tempted to wander off the true path  -- she better not.  The PC Police will get her.

Do they have an APB out for me yet? 

...continue reading "So What If A Bodice Rips? Wait — Do The PC Police Have An APB Out For Me Yet?"

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A quick "public service announcement" to readers looking to buy my work for Nook.  Quacking Alone Romances is in the midst of a transition with how work gets uploaded to B&N.  During the transition, until "Mr. Brick" beats out the bugs, some of the work downloaded may appear without covers.  Even worse, some of it may appear with a tiny little thumbnail size cover in the upper left corner of your Nook screen. 

Why are we transitioning?  Since indie work appeared in the Nook store, my books were delivered by Smashwords.  I stayed with the platform long, long after B&N opened a way for writers to deliver work directly to Nook.  I stayed with the platform even though the B&N "pubit" system allowed authors to keep more of the money they made.  What has finally convinced me to switch is the lengthy delay in getting money into my bank account.

I'm not blaming Smashwords.  Their system is their system and I'll still use it for Apple, Disel, Sony and KOBO.  But since B&N has a system that functions like Amazon's KDP, shows real time sales numbers, and pays monthly - economics have forced me to switch to Pubit and upload to B&N directly.

The work is formatted right - I think - and if it's not, please HOLLA at us by the email link on this site.  We'll get the covers right on the downloads too, but those pesky day jobs keep getting in the way...

Oh, and if you're a Cover Bug on B&N infesting a QA/Mary Anne Graham Romance cover expertly designed by John Graham -- you better look out.  Mr. Brick packs a nasty punch and he's hunting bugs.

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In today's economy most of us are on budgets that are beyond tight.  Never have we needed hope, optimism and a belief in the future more.  And never could we afford it less. 

Traditionally published romances average around $7.99 and new releases by some publishers top the $12 mark.  If you're trying to make a house payment and keep your lights on - how can you justify spending that money for a book?  Most of us can't these days.  We simply can't. 

Yet you can pick up many indie romances for as little as 99 cents.  I published The Duke of Eden on Amazon as a serial before I finished the full.  There are 3 parts of the serial up at Amazon.  Each sells for 99 cents and the full sells for $2.99.  It's easier to pick up the book in 1 installment, but if your budget won't allow it, then pick it up a piece at a time.  Most writers who sell serial stuff only put out little chunks, a chapter or so at a time, making the whole book much more expensive than just buying a regular novel. 

I didn't do that.  I put out big chunks of Duke and only charged 99 cents for each.  And when I published the full for $2.99, I left the serial up, even though it costs me higher priced sales of the full.  Why?  Because I get it. I'm with you.  I understand.  I'm in the same place you are with my budget and I refuse - I absolutely refuse- to unpublish the lower priced option.

Many folks haven't tried indie romance.  Somehow, they consider indie work to be inferior and unworthy.  Or that's what they've heard, anyway.  Well, in today's economy when traditional publishers don't consider your bottom line, maybe this is the best time to give indie romance a shot.  Lord knows, the news is full of gloom and doom.  Creditors are calling, nasty letters come in the mail and many of us are paying bills in chunks.

More than ever, people need regular doses of the kind of hope, optimism and happy endings that they get from romance novels.  Remember the old commercials that talked about "Miller time?"  Well - it's INDIE TIME. 

Most indie romance sells for $2.99 or less.  You can pick up A Faerie Fated Forever for free at almost every ebook site on the planet right now.  Don't let the high prices charged by traditional publishers deprive you of the hope and optimism that helps fuel you to keep on keeping on until it gets better.  And it will.  We all know it will. 

By the time things improve, I hope that indie romance has become your first choice.  Indie authors are doing some of the best, most creative, most cutting edge work out there. Once you go indie, you may not want to go back.

And why should you?

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There's a thread the indie authors at the KDP Forum have been watching.  It's a Kindle thread about hating indie authors - and no, I'm not linking it here.  Some of the posters are hoping that Amazon will ban indie writers.  I doubt that will happen, not just because Amazon makes a lot of money from indies, but because I think Amazon realizes that a varied marketplace is the best fit for a varied world.

Some folks like indies and some don't.  That's fine.  If you don't like indie authors, you shouldn't buy our work.  Fair enough.  I have no right to force my indie books on someone who prefers traditionally published work. But banning indies?  The group has no more right to deprive others who like indie work of it than I do to force them to read it.  Respect is a two-way street folks.

But reading that thread and then reading some of the reader comments on some of my work have caused me to go back and check a couple of things.  There are comments talking about grammatical errors and misspellings through a couple of my books.  I'll fess up to needing to fix Brotherly Love in which I kept spelling lose (as in my mind) with loose (as in my accounting methods). 

But the other books referenced?  There's a comment talking about all the typos and spelling errors in A Golden Forever.  I ran back over that one, and couldn't find the errors.  However, I ran across several sections where I'd used colloquial phrases or people who spoke differently.  In those sections the spelling is different.  But I really know that scared isn't spelled scairt. I just spelled it the way the character spoke. 

There are a bunch of places where I write the way the work flows and sometimes that's not grammatically correct.  But my B.A. is in English.  I underestand grammar and (mostly) I even remember the rules when I write. But I don't let 'em fence me in. Sometimes. I don't like. Fences, rules or people who. Avidly. Support. Either. 

There are surely misspellings in my work.  But I'm going to make it my mission to re-edit everything and to run it through a neat site that checks spelling, grammar, style and punctuation.  I've made enough on my e-books to finance that, and I'll do it because I don't want any of my "human errors" to keep people from enjoying my books.

Having said all that, I realize that there are readers who won't like my work for reasons as wide and as varied as today's virtual bookshelves.  Most of the time I write over the top and take it way past what readers anticipate or expect.  For stretches in my books a lot of the "action" is internal - a conflict a character is having with himself or herself.  I enjoy mind hopping. It's one of the reasons I read romance instead of watching it on TV - I don't just want to know what happenned, I want to know why it happenned.  Why it HAD to happen. 

Some readers don't like it as far over the top as I write it.  Fair enough.  Some readers love the trip and email me asking about the next journey.  Love that.  I'm gonna do the additional editing I can do and then have ErrNET follow behind to catch what I miss.  But the editing site will see some style choices as errors and I'll disagree and leave them in, just as they are. The style has to stay true to the work.

There are people who don't like any indie work.  Others just don't like my work. And there are some wild, free spirited readers who'll go over the top with me and yell because I didn't take 'em higher. You'll forgive me if I'm just a bit more partial to the last group.

Fences can only confine you if you stay on the ground and refuse to climb to see how high you might go.  And if you keep climbing, you might get to the top and jump off to find that you can fly.  I'll meet you there - flying over rules and reality, over borders and boundaries, past can't and must. 

If you're grounded in reality and rooted by rules, then my work isn't for you. You won't like it no matter how it's edited or formatted.  If you're a dreamer who opens a new reality with each book then you might like the view from over the top. I'm always happy to fly with readers who have spirits big enough and open enough and wise enough to know that limits are only figments of our imagination.

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Yesterday, about suppertime (dinnertime if you're not Southern), our internet connection got restored after a full day's absence.  In my ecstatic, gluttonous boogling around the internet after supper, I ran across The Romance Reader's list of the Top 100 Romance Novels.   It makes for fascinating reading. 

The list was composed from reader's nominations of over 1500 books by over 500 authors.  The books with the most votes made the list, which actually contains 109 books because there were several ties.  Although there appears to be a variety of books, the first thing that impressed me was further evidence of how loyal readers are to their favorite authors. 

I noted that several writers appear over and over again.  For example, the first book on the list is "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon.  Four of her other books made the list.  I've got to say, I disagree with "Outlander" being anywhere in the Top 100.  I don't like the book.  I picked it up a few months back as a free read and made it all the way through, certain that at the end there would be some kind of amazing happy ending to make all the misery between the lead couple worthwhile.  It didn't happen.  I hear that there is some sort of HEA for the lead couple in a later book, but that's not good enough. If there's no HEA, then in my book, it's not a romance.

Again, Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Linda Howard appear several times and I heartily agree with both.  Linda Howard's "Dream Man" has a permanent place on my keeper shelf as does Phillips "It Had to Be You" - and her whole Chicago Stars series.  I love both of those books, but I don't think either one should be at the top. Other authors who appear a number of times are Julie Garwood (Love her stuff "The Secret" lives on my keeper shelf), Judith McNaught ("Whitney, My Love" also lives with me), Nora Roberts, Georgette Heyer, Amanda Quick, LaVyrle Spencer and Mary Jo Putney. 

For me,  the #1 Romance should be a tie between Kathleen Woodiwesses' "The Flame and The Flower" and Johanna Lindsey's "Gentle Rogue."  That was one of my first thoughts when I saw this list.  It led to the BIGGEST SHOCKER OF THE LIST - NONE OF LINDSEY'S MALLORY NOVELS MADE THE LIST AT ALL.  Only 1 of Ms. Lindsey's books made it - a scifi romance called "Warrior's Woman" which I've never read and which only came in at #68, tied with a bunch of others.

Who were the readers voting for this list?  In my book, James Mallory, from "A Gentle Rogue" is the perfect romance novel hero and the Mallory series taught me how series romance should be done.  Ms. Lindsey was robbed, I tell you, robbed.

My second shocker dealt with another of my favorites series romance writers - Julia Quinn.  NONE of her books made the list.  None.  Hello? What was in the Kool-Aid these people were drinking?

 My final and happiest shock from the list?  How very few of the books were "paranormal."  There was no horde of vampires, zombies or werewolves - Hallelujah.  The absence of large numbers of these books from the list gives me hope for the future of our genre. 

Mind you, I do think that more contemporary romance should make the list.  My WIP is a contemporary as are 2 of my others (Griffin's Law and The Billionaire's E-mail Seduction).  The next time anyone puts together a Top 100 list I hope it contains few to no werewolves, zombies or vampires and features a lot more contemporaries.

Peruse the list and let's be grateful to the good folks at The Romance Reader for putting it together- even if none of my books made it either.