“What’s in A Name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Well, maybe to a gardener but not to a parent or an author!

I received my name when my parents realized on the way to the hospital that their first-born just might not be a son. (Gasp!) My name was the only girl’s name they could think of, in the time available.

They decided to be better prepared for their second born and arrived ready to name an unexpected girl child after both grandmothers, Alice and Elizabeth. Unfortunately, they hadn’t realized this gave their second daughter the same name as two grandmothers, three aunts, and, well, let’s just not go into how many great-grandmothers and cousins, shall we? So my sister is known by Lisa, the only nickname for her two given names which wasn’t already in use somewhere in the family.

Kisses Like A Devil, the latest Devil book, introduces a new generation of Donovans. Brian, William and Viola’s second son, meets his true love in Meredith Duncan in 1900 Europe at an arms dealer’s private party, which Teddy Roosevelt sent Brian to. Much murder and mayhem ensue when the Russians realize that Meredith is the key to the secret weapon’s plans and their hopes to reconquer Alaska and the Yukon goldfields…

Brian is very much a family man and I had to understand his brothers – or at least name them – to write his story. I always knew William and Viola had four sons and that at least one would have an Irish name. Brian is named for Brian Boru. (William and Viola talked about this in The Northern Devil. That scene is one of those which the characters controlled at least as much as the author!)

But what should their eldest son be named? Surely William would want to honor his best friend in this way. But I exerted my authorly prerogative and vetoed any such tendency. I would not write another book with a hero named Morgan; The Southern Devil was quite enough. That left me with Viola’s laughter ringing in my ears and the question of what to call him?

How about something Irish, for William’s heritage? Patrick, Michael, or another one of the more common names from the period? Hmm… William’s eldest son stirred in my subconscious and requested a more Celtic name. Neil? Neil was acceptable.

Okay, two down and two to go.

William and Viola’s youngest two sons are twins. Viola’s family names their children for characters from Shakespeare’s plays.

Romeo? Hamlet? Macbeth? Lear? Falstaff? Titus Andronicus? Yuck. Have I already used all the good hero names for a Brava? Or am I in a rut? (I don’t like either of these questions…)

I start writing the book and swapping names in and out for the twins. Mercifully, I write with the entire manuscript in a single file but, even so, I’m getting ridiculously good at global search and replace.

Perhaps the twins want to be named for Elizabethan poets, not Shakesperean characters? William might enjoy a small private joke of being the in-law who’s related to Shakespeare but not quite there.

Who were some good Elizabethan poets? Would the twins be better off using their first or last names?

What about Edmund Spenser (author of The Faerie Queene and creator of the Spenserian sonnet) and Christopher Marlowe (poet, spy and tavern brawler)? They sounded like a good pair to me – except neither twin wanted to be known by those first names. They insisted on being known by the poets’ last names. Ohhkayyy. Wonder how much they’re going to grow up like their namesakes, when/if they get their own books?

What excitement have you had selecting children’s names? Any surprises between the child’s name and their persona/character?

I’ll give away a copy of Kisses Like A Devil to one randomly chosen commentator. I’ll post the winner before Monday morning.

Diane

www.dianewhiteside.com

Holidays always include memories of family and food for me, some of them delightful and others best not repeated. My family’s nineteenth century plum cake recipe still results in a glorious dessert and nobody has ever made sage stuffing as well as my grandfather did. Period. On the other hand, my mother’s tuna fish and cranberry mold tasted better than you might expect the only time I ever ate it.

I love to work descriptions of food into my novels. The recipes in The Irish Devil come from a period cookbook my grandmother gave me and a period travel guide to Arizona. (Who’d have thought ham was the priciest meat around back then???) The River Devil’s menus came from travelers exclaiming over the fine food available on board riverboats, especially its incredible freshness. I like to imagine my characters savoring a particularly delightful morsel, when it’s part of a reunion with friends. Or how easily inexperienced men could have ruined bean soup for dinner. (Nothing like scorching the bottom of the pan or not getting all the rocks and sand out to make beans the next best thing to inedible!)

What foods mean holidays and family – or friends – to you? Do any meals stand out in your mind?

I have a $25 Starbucks gift card for somebody who mentions food. I’ll pick a winner at random by Monday and will post it in the comments section.

Back in February, my family decided to sell our house. Given that we wanted to make the most money (d’uh!), we followed our realtor’s advice and emptied our closets as much as possible. End result? Sixty boxes of my books went into storage until we could move to a new town.

We arrived at our new home (yay!!!) and the moving trucks pulled up. Out rolled box after box after box of books. And more boxes. And even more! At the end of the day, my original sixty had at least doubled, probably more.

What did they do, in the darkness of the rented storage space? Send out shoots and gather up all the other books in that giant facility to them, saying here was somebody who can’t bear to throw books out? Sprout like mushrooms?

I’ve now got collections I barely remember. Passions whose scale astonish me. Okay, I admit I’ll buy any Georgette Heyer book standing still but that many boxes of cookbooks? I have every edition of everything Linda Howard ever wrote. <thud> (Okay, that’s probably a really good idea…) Did I really buy all those Suzanne Brockmann books in one six-month period, the way my family keeps reminding me? Talk about glomming an author!

Have you ever woken up to find yourself with stacks of books you barely remember buying? Do you enjoy gobbling up books by an author? Who have you discovered this way? Did you want to keep the books or give them away?

Diane, wondering what comes next

In quiring minds want to know:  how do you want your authors?  If you were to meet us in the flesh, how would you want to do so?

The opportunities for an author are abundant – but what do you prefer?

Do you want to chat or just get your books signed?  Or a mix?  Intimacy with an author or two – or a big group situation where you can see lots of authors at once?

 Do you like us at booksignings?  Would you prefer us at an intimate weekend conference?  A cozy dinner party?  A rowdy conference where we can talk about Anything?

 Please tell!

Diane, eager for signposts through the jungle

Four inches of snow on the ground, a half-inch of ice on the top to cause accidents, and a forecast of high winds to top everything off with power failures….Yup, it’s winter and the weather is definitely not playing nice.

Here in Washington, DC, we celebrate the dog days of summer with Christmas in August. Every year, our local PBS station plays Christmas carols for a week, leading up to a big concert on the National Mall. Everybody sings their favorite carols, accompanied by a symphony orchestra, and dreams of icy weather as a pleasant alternative to the current appalling high heat and humidity. (Had you heard the British Empire used to give their diplomats hazardous duty pay for serving here, because of the summers?)

Well, I’d like a few inspirational thoughts right now about summer. You know, sunshine, hot climates, and of course a sexy guy – or maybe two. Somebody like Linda Howard’s Ben Lewis in HEART OF FIRE to take into the Brazilian rain forest. Hey, I’m sure I’d manage to take at least one shower deep in the jungle with him, wouldn’t you?

But who else? What books or movies would you suggest for dreams about fun with a great guy someplace hot, instead of being stuck someplace cold and uncomfortable?

Diane

Diane Whiteside

THE IRISH DEVIL
BOND OF FIRE (1/08) “Audacious…shockingly heady brew…compelling” Publishers Weekly
BOND OF DARKNESS, Texas vampires trilogy volume 3 (10/08)

Here it is, Thursday December 27^th, and I’m wondering what to do. Should I start one of my holiday resolutions early? Yeah, that’s it: Go on the big diet just before New Year’s Eve! Or start writing the next Devil’s book when I’m sure William’s son plans to save the heroine from the villainous French spy but he hasn’t told me how he plans to accomplish it?

Hmm, maybe I won’t start a big project right away.

Or should I putter my way through my ever-increasing list of short projects? How about terrorizing my credit card balances at a post-Christmas sale? Or there’s the new Johnny Depp movie, which I only need to see once. (And if you believe that, there’s this bridge in Brooklyn…) Or clean my house, which is still covered in piles of wrapping paper supplies and baking goods?

Of course, I absolutely must say hello to my friends – especially those enjoying a quiet time before life gets hectic again after New Year’s. And I could try sleeping in a couple of times…

What do you do between Christmas and New Year’s? Do you start big projects, work on several smaller projects, or simply enjoy the quieter pace during the holidays?

When I went away to college, all my relatives got together and gave me different perfumes for my birthday to show that they now considered me an adult. Ohkayyyy, that was a nice thought. I just wasn’t sure I liked their definition of what an adult smelled like. I had no desire to smell like my grandmother, or my great-aunt. Well, maybe Aunt Alice, who had some really exotic perfume from the Orient.

But were any of those scents really moi? When I got dressed in the morning or went out on a date, did I grab any of those bottles? Uh, no. So there they sat on my dresser and finally I gave them away to friends, who thought they were cool.

I learned later that scents aren’t processed by the logical parts of our brain. They’re absorbed by the brain stem, the instinctual part, which goes back to a time before mammals. So we can’t argue with what perfumes we like or dislike; we’ve got to just go with the flow.

But all those relatives had made me realize an adult woman has a signature scent. She’s Special, with a capital S. When she walks into a room, men react to her scent. Whoohoo! (Hey, the relatives might not have wanted that thought process but I was young and horny.)

I started checking out perfume counters.

That’s when I happened upon a short story written by Ian Fleming. In it, James Bond finds himself with a few days’ vacation in Paris and imagines his dream date. Aha! said I and settled down to take notes. Imagine my surprise when he specifically stated that she wore either Balmain’s Vent Vert or Chanel No. 19, when she strolled down the street toward him.

Really? Man, I was at Saks 5th Avenue the next day!

Both perfumes are “woodsy” perfumes with floral notes. I loved, loved, loved them both!

Balmain’s Vent Vert was always very hard to find and has since been reformulated into a more floral version. I wore it with love and said goodbye with regret.

Chanel No. 19 was created for Coco Chanel and is named for her birthday. It’s an all-natural perfume and was created by Chanel’s in-house perfumer. I still love it and wear it.

Now if James Bond would just give me a phone call, I’m ready!

What perfume do you wear and why? Did someone you love give it to you or did you find it yourself?

Diane

Welcome to my very first time blogging at Brava Authors! In keeping with the spirit of good times that generally fills these halls, I’d like to talk to you about music. Yup, music.

You see, everyone of my heroes and heroines have theme songs. In fact, I have a very hard writing a book until I know exactly what their theme song is. Plus, the theme song isn’t about the relationship; it’s about the individual. It tells me their hungers, what they want in a romance – and not necessarily this romance. Often the song tell me how far they’re willing to go to make a relationship work.

So far <knock wood> my characters have introduced themselves and then told me their theme song, before I wrote their book. I haven’t written a book triggered by a song, although there are a couple of songs lurking in the back of my head, just waiting for the right character.

Since I write historicals, I’m eternally grateful to my characters for selecting their theme songs from artists who they wouldn’t have listened to while alive. It’s much easier finding recordings of the latest rock stars and pop divas than 1860′s music halls headliners. Duh! Although those old lyrics can be very, very interesting sometimes… But I digress.

William Donovan told me long before I put pen to paper that his theme song was Celine Dion’s “I Want You to Need Me.” It’s a song about being desperately in love with somebody, yet knowing they won’t – can’t – pay attention to you. Hearing that from such an incredibly strong man told me about his inner vulnerability. Here‘s a music video of it.

Viola’s theme song is also sung by Celine Dion on the same album, All the Way. It’s “Then You Look At Me,” which told me so much about how Viola’s heart opened up when she realized somebody – especially William – truly loved her. You can watch the music video from Bicentennial Man (which I’ve never seen <le sigh>) here.

What about you? Is there a connection for you between music and books? When you read certain books, does music run through your heads? Does music inspire you to write?

Hugs -
Diane