Hurray! It's finally here!

Betina here, celebrating the arrival of my latest book! It's a Harlequin BLAZE. . . historical and sexy and full of fun. Today is the official release date, although I've already had e-mails from readers saying they'd found it in stores earlier and have already read it! I am soooo excited. . . partly because this is my first book out in a while and partly because. . . I just LOVE this book.

It combines my favorite elements in a romance: humor, women's power, a battle of wits, and a playful sensuality. Heroine Mariah Eller is not a woman to trifle with. She is bright and determined and knows the ways of the world. So imagine her dismay when she finds her newly remodeled inn invaded by drunken noblemen out for a raunchy bit of fun. While keeping them from destroying her property, she catches the eye of the group's leader. . . none other than the Prince of Wales himself.

The prince decides to take the feisty and fetching widow for a mistress and dispatches his trusted friend and hunting companion, Jack St.Lawrence, to marry her off so he can bed her. [Bertie-- for his own twisty reasons-- dallied only with married women. ] Jack St. Lawrence, would rather have teeth pulled than be stuck marrying off the bold, opinionated, and far-too-delectable widow. But he's nothing, if not loyal.

This is NOT Tristan and Isolde. Trust me.

Mariah makes life as difficult as possible for "Iron Jack." His efforts to marry her off perversely bring them closer together. For true love to prevail, Jack will have to betray his friend and benefactor and Mariah will have to defy the will of one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. Pretty formidable odds.

And yet. . . there is hope. Want to see how this one turns out?

One aspect of this book is a glimpse of the attitudes toward women that made it possible for men of means to take advantage of them. Society did not not allow women self-determination, and refused to credit them with ambition or purpose. But there were many women in the late Victorian era who chafed at the double standard and stood up for themselves, their families, and daughters. The drawing rooms of Victorian England are where the whole women's rights movement began.

I loved writing this book and working with Brenda Chin at Harlequin. If you know anything about my work, you'll know that I've specialized in big, thick historicals for most of my career. I confess that I worried at first that I'd find myself having to cut things I'd usually include. I was delighted to find that in writing a shorter book, I was freed to concentrate solely on the main romance. No complicating secondary plots or pesky secondary characters threatening to take over the book. From the Prince to the aged butler to the plain-spoken lady's maid, everybody served the romance.

And I discovered a more disciplined approach to word use in the book. I reined in my tendency to "double" everything and made myself be more focused and succinct. Yeah, it surprised me, too.

So, have I titillated your tastebuds? Whetted your appetite for some historical hijinx?

I hope you have a chance to read Make Me Yours and that you'll stop by my web site (BetinaKrahn.com) and let me know how you liked it. (Okay, if you must, you can tell me here.) (cough)

Oh, and I'm giving away three copies of Make Me Yours to commenters today. So let's hear from you. Questions? Comments? I'll give you a few topics. . . talk amongst yerselves. . .

*Short historicals. . . boon or boondoggle?
*Is $4.99 too much to pay for a book you won't read more than six or eight times?
*How many sex scenes are too many in a 200 page book?
*The Kama Sutra is greatly overrated.
*Historical covers are more "romantic" than contemporary covers.
*Historical covers are cheesier than contemporary covers.
*Betina's new icon picture. . . rocks or sucks?

WOO HOO! My book's out! Champagne all around!

The joys of writing. . .

Betina here.

Of late I've been researching a new book, looking for a period and place and a provocative story nugget that I can turn into an epic romance. And you know what-- I LOVE research. For a trivia junkie like me, this is heaven. I could do this all day, every day. That is, unless I'm expected to actually produce something from it. Sigh. There's always a catch.

So far, I researched gun manufacturing in Britain during Victorian times, oriental trade and political relations during the Victorian era, and the development of martial arts in the orient and elsewhere. Oh, and did I mention British political scandals of the Victorian era?

Breach loading rifles, karate, and Gladstone's obsession with soiled doves. Try making a steamy romance out of those.

Then I stumbled back to medieval days. . . for a look at how weaving began and what the weaving centers for tapestries and fancy wall hangings were. Then I looked at early looms and the process of making threads and producing dyes. Then I looked at medieval legends in England and France. . .

Prehistoric looms and shuttle calluses, alchemists who produced dyes in secret and carried out industrial intrigue against each other, and woodcuts of people with no arms and one great mouth in the middle of their chests. . . ewwww. Keep looking . . .

Then I raced to colonial America. . . where I began looking at early American agricultural practices. And the run-up to the war of 1812. . . which was our SECOND war of independence. I began looking at what happened at the burning of Washington DC and the incident of Dolly Madison saving George Washington's portrait. . .

Hey, did you know they used to beat apple trees in spring to make them produce? How about harvesting oats green to get both "king(top kernal on the stalk) and queen (bottom kernal)"? Did you know guys with great breeding horses used to tour the farming areas offering their stallions for stud. . . living off the proceeds? Traving studs. Okay we're getting warmer. . . definite potential here. . .

Whoa. Did you know that what stopped the British from taking over Washington permanently was literally an act of God? Honest-- it was a hurricane and a tornado that wrecked the British ships lying offshore and made such a mess of the British troups occupying the area that they retreated in disorder! Is that a historical paranormal writer's dream or what?

Gotta learn more about that event. . .

So, more than you wanted to know about the mind and imagination of an historical writer and what happens when one gets stuck in RESEARCH MODE and doesn't want to leave. Do you ever start looking up something and find yourself on the trail of a fascinating bit of trivia?

And if you had to choose, would you rather read a colonial America book, a medieval, or a Victorian?

Welcome Guest author Karen Tabke!!

We are thrilled to welcome a super cool person and a super hot writer, Karen Tabke today. If you haven't read her yet - oh my! You're in for a treat. Please, without further delay, welcome Karen..............

Hello, ladies! And thank you, Cindy for the invite to pop in, introduce myself and hang out for the day. I’m really honored to be here.

So, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m Karin Tabke, and I write really passionate romance! Seriously. And not just passion between the hero and heroine, but their passion for life, their passion for what they believe in, their passion for family, and living, and loving, and playing. Oh, and passion for food. I love a good food scene. LOL

My characters always stand for something and never fall for everything. They live hard, play hard, and love harder. We’ve all heard the adage write what you know; well I have taken that to heart. I’m a passionate person. I married a passionate man. My children are passionate. We are loud, emotional, and love to eat good food and be with the people we care about the most. I have three dogs, two cats and an African Grey named Max who has all of our laughs, cries and cell phone ring tones down pat. My house is in constant motion, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I started writing hot cops. It wasn’t a stretch, the hubster is a retired cop. His many years on the streets and the passionate people he worked with have given me endless fodder for my stories. But my first love, the reason I fell in love with romance was reading the sweeping historicals of the 70’s and 80’s. The meaty, emotional, passionate ones where men were men, and women were woman, and they made no excuses for who they were and what they did. Life was different one thousand years ago, and those sweeping love stories carried me off to my own world for countless hours. I still sigh when I think back to those days. And it was exactly that feeling I wanted again, and so The Blood Sword Legacy series was born.

I’m very excited to say I have two books out this month. JADED the third in my ‘hot cop’ series, and my debut historical, MASTER OF SURRENDER, set in tumultuous 1066 England. It is the first book of the series. Every time I think of the hero and heroine, Rohan and Isabel, I smile. Their passion for what they believed in nearly destroyed them but their love did conquer all. This story takes me back to the days when I was a girl, squirreled away in my bedroom eagerly reading and sighing and wishing that one day my prince would come. He did, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love to read about other girls getting their prince. It’s why I write.

So tell me, what book made you fall in love with romance? And I’d love to give away a copy of GOOD GIRL GONE BAD, SKIN or WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE, to a lucky commenter. As simple Hi, Karin, will get you in the drawing.

Thanks again ladies for inviting me here today!

Kathleen Goes To the Movies

Oh, no! It's my day! And I'm late, late, late!

Fortunately, I've been thinking and chatting with a friend about my next blog, so when I opened up today to RWTTD ready to sink my teeth into something delicious from another Rider and saw Helen's announcement, and I knew, I KNEW I should have checked the schedule, well, all was not lost. My brain was not totally blank. See, I had a book released just this week, and that event has a way of mushing up the gray matter. The book is MYSTIC HORSEMAN, and everything you might want to know about it can be found on my web site. And we've got our own little bookshop right here in the convertible, in case you feel like ordering.

But I've been to the movies lately, and I have two flicks to throw out for discussion. You know how much I love the big, sweeping costume saga. I've been devouring the Tudor period recently, so daughter Elizabeth and I took in "The Other Boleyn Girl." Nice costumes, pretty landscapes, lavish and moody interiors. But I do like a bit of history with my sagas. I know this was based on a piece of historical fiction, and they call it fiction for a reason, but come on. There was a lot more to Henry than skirt chasing and a lot more to Anne than sibling rivalry. There was big stuff going on, and most of it had to do with lining up a male heir. You can't get away with reducing the Boleyn story to soapsuds. Sorry. Jonathan Rys Myers ("The Tudors") makes a better Henry than Eric Bana(?) (shown here) but neither compares to Richard Burton. (Don't laugh, kids. Burton was young once, too.) I'm fascinated by this period of history, and I insist that any story we create about it now should speak at least a tiny bit about what was behind all the intrigue--the concern for transition of power after generations of civil war, the beginnings of separation of Church and State, little stuff like that. It doesn't have to be a big history lesson, but don't play dumb. The Tudor saga can't be set in Dallas--Anne ain't Sue Ellen, and Henry's no JR. (Don't laugh, kids. I know the reference is so 20th century, but I'm in a hurry. Update for me. Give me another show.)

On to "Goya's Ghosts," new on DVD. Yes, Natalie Portman again. And, yes, that's the fabulous and now famous Javier Bardem. He's terrific in this one, too. Oddly, Goya is played by a Swedish actor and Randy Quaid plays the king of Spain. But it works. Trust me. The film got mixed reviews--mostly on the down side--but I found it interesting. Interesting period--last gasp of the Inquisition, a bit of slop-over from the French Revolution, topped with a visit from Napoleon and his brother. The whole thing plays out through Goya's viewpoint. He's just trying to make a living here. Portman is an innocent merchant's daughter who models for Goya. Bardem is a monk who gets himself appointed Grand Inquisitor and has Portman's character arrested. Goya is pivotal because he knows all the principles. He's the best portrait artist in Spain--has connections in court. But he's sensitive to the issues of the day and the plight of the common people, as his charcoal sketches--sold in shops all over Europe--clearly show. I suspect there were historical liberties taken in this one, too, but the commentary on torture is surely timely. (No, you don't have to suffer too much pain. Just enough to get the idea.)

Whatever liberties might have been taken in the name of art on this one, this climactic scene from the film (left) certainly mirrors the mood in Goya's sketch (right).

Are you a historical movie fan? Have you seen any good (or bad) ones lately? What do you expect from them? Are there some actors who really shine in historical roles and some who just don't work? (No, kidding, Randy Quaid will surprise you.)

Guest - SABRINA JEFFRIES

Today's treat is a chat with New York Times Bestselling novelist Sabrina Jeffries! She's one of the most likeable people I know and from the moment I met her, it was clear we'd been separated at birth.


She's got a brand new book out and (knowing how she worries) I thought we'd invite her over and give her something to do while her book is climbing the charts.


Debra: First, because I think our peeps will love this story... You told me a story about moving into your new house a couple of years ago. I loved it. Could you tell it again?

I love gardenias, so I was delighted when I first moved into our new house to find that we had two gardenia bushes. There was only one problem—they were down the alley where no one, including me, could see them, not even from the street. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would plant such gorgeous bushes in an alley. Clearly, it was done for a reason, because there was also a hummingbird feeder there. Then I realized that all three sat directly outside a window. One particular window.

Let me back up here. One of the things that attracted us to the house was that it had so many handicapped accessible features, including a double shower. Since at the time, we were still having to bathe our autistic teen, we liked the accessibility of the shower. Granted, we didn’t need the features as badly as the previous owners, parents of an full-grown woman with CP who wasn’t mobile and had to be bathed in a sling, but it was still an advantage for us.
I’m sure you’ve figured out where I’m going with this. The window looking out over the alley was the bedroom window of the previous owner’s daughter. She couldn’t leave her bed, so her mother planted those bushes and placed that feeder in the alley for her to see whenever she looked out.


Every time I think of it I cry. And now, whenever I remember to go down that alley and pluck a few gardenias to put in the bowl in my office, I also think of how much that mother loved her daughter, and I cry again. So yes, those are very special bushes to me.

Debra: Congrats on the new book, LET SLEEPING ROGUES LIE. I just checked on Amazon and the book is #344 overall (Yay!) and # 1 in the Historical Regency category and # 3 in Romance Contemporary. I'm not sure how that works! But congrats! Tell us about the yummy hero of this book.

Anthony Dalton is a rakehell, but not a typical one, I hope. He’s sort of a less cynical, more conflicted version of Gavin Byrne from the Royal Brotherhood series. He was relatively content with his devil-may-care life until his applecart got upset when his brother died and he inherited not only an estate and a title, but an adorable niece. The problem is, his brother didn’t designate a guardian, so his aunt and uncle want custody. And they are really bad people. He knows this firsthand, having lived with them for a few years while he was a child. So he’s willing to jump through all sorts of hoops to get custody of his young niece, including ingratiating himself with Mrs. Harris. He figures the court won’t be on his side unless he can prove he’s the better option, and how better to do that than to show that he got his niece into the most sought after school in London? That’s how he ends up agreeing to teach rake lessons.


Debra: I love the concept of "rake lessons." The perfect gift for the reader who has everything. How did you come up with the idea for this book? (Readers can read a chapter on Amazon.) Click for Excerpt.

Believe it or not, the rake lessons were an editorial suggestion. Someone said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if the hero were a rake who offered lessons to the students at the school?” Instead of just blowing it off, I thought, “Actually, it WOULD be cool.”

But it turned out to be more complicated than that. I had to make sure Mrs. Harris didn’t look like an idiot for letting the cock in the henhouse, and I knew any hero worth his salt had better have a great reason for agreeing to such an outrageous suggestion. So that’s why I came up with the idea of the custody battle over his niece. That motivation ended up playing into his own character as a rakehell so well that it became an important theme in the novel—how to deal with the baggage from our childhood.

Then I had to figure out what kind of woman would get under the skin of a guy who had seen and done everything. That’s how Miss Scientist, er, Madeline, was born. I just loved playing with a heroine who saw life as one big science experiment.

Debra: You've done a couple of short stories for BelleBooks and the first one in A DAY IN MOSSY CREEK just had us all crying. In the second story in AT HOME IN MOSSY CREEK, you returned to familiar territory with a romance story. How hard is it to write short after writing long for so much of your career?

Actually, the experiences of writing those two were vastly different. The first one kind of poured out of me, so it wasn’t hard at all. I think it took me a few days. Plus, I got the plot first, which is the linchpin for me. The SECOND story…oh, my God. I worked and worked on it, for three weeks. Part of it was the stricter parameters y’all had set, but most of it was that I’d started with a character and nothing else. For a plot-driven person like me, that’s a recipe for trouble. The thing is, I CAN write short, but I don’t like to, except maybe in novellas. That’s long enough that I can feel comfortable. But trying to squeeze a romance into 30-odd pages is very hard.

Debra: What's your LEAST favorite thing about being a novelist?

The lack of structure in my life. As a person diagnosed with ADD, I need some structure. Without it, I sometimes have trouble carving out time to write (unlike all the other writers I know). The other demands of the business draw me away, especially in the early stages of a book, when the writing is so hard for me.

Debra: What's in your reading pile?

I’m presently reading The Bestseller by Olivia Goldsmith (fabulous book!) AND Joan Didion’s Slouching Toward Bethlehem. Yes, both of them. I’m too ADD to read one book at a time. J Actually, though, I picked up the second one free in a coffeehouse and found it so engrossing that I decided to read the whole thing. It’s very dated, but that in itself makes it fascinating. Aside from those two, I have a stack the size of Mount Everest, including books by several of my fellow goddesses from The Goddess Blogs, assorted other friends’ books, several new history books, Johanna Lindsey’s Angel, random titles I took from conferences because I wanted to try the authors (still haven’t), and several anthologies. I love anthologies because I can get a taste of an author without committing to a full novel. But not everyone writes them well. I try to keep that in mind and not judge too harshly.

Debra: And last, but most importantly, give us a tiny peek and insight into the next book we'll be seeing after LET SLEEPING ROGUES LIE.

Well, the absolute next is a Christmas anthology story that comes out in November. I think it turned out really well. After that comes the novel I just started writing, so I can’t say much, but it’s about Lucy Seton from Let Sleeping Rogues Lie and Rafael Montega, a Spanish magician (not the paranormal kind, but the illusionist, David Copperfield kind). I’m serious. Ever since I read Nora Roberts’ Honest Illusions, I’ve had a thing for magicians, and I finally decided to write one. The magic act doesn’t play a huge part—it’s more like flavoring. The more significant part is that the hero and the heroine were in Spain during the Peninsular Wars. The heroine’s father is British and her mother Spanish; the hero is the son of wealthy Spaniards who fell on hard times after they lost everything to looting British soldiers at the Battle of Corunna. That’s why Rafael became a performer—to survive at a young age. He prospers, and when the book opens, he has just moved next door to the school to turn the adjacent property into a pleasure garden that will rake in the big bucks. Needless to say Lucy and Mrs. Harris are a little perturbed at the idea of a Vauxhall-type operation next door to the girl’s school. Cousin Michael gets clandestinely involved, Lucy gets not-so-clandestinely involved, and as usual in my books, things turn out to be not quite what they seem.

Part of the story is influenced by my absolute adoration of the Sharpe series, which I watched for the first time last year. I loved the insight it gave me into the Peninsular Wars. Plus, I just love Spanish guys. So there you go.

And yes, right after that comes Charlotte and Michael’s book, for those following the series. So y’all can all stop writing me to ask if they’re ever getting a book!

Debra: Okay guys! Now's your chance to ask those probing questions your momma told you never to ask.