A couple years ago, I met Dean Koontz. The first Dean Koontz book I ever read was WATCHERS. I was an instant fan.

A few years after that, my brother-in-law broke his neck (he’s fine now). While he was in the hospital, we traded Dean Koontz books and talked about them. I’ll always remember Koontz for that, for giving my brother-in-law a much needed distraction with his books.

Years later, I was the co-president of my local Romance Writers of America chapter. By this time, I’d had the privilege of meeting a lot of authors and always enjoyed it.

But this was DEAN KOONTZ! I was really excited. I brought my sister with me, and we had about two hundred people at the meeting. During the morning, we did our business as usual. Then I was standing with my co-president when I looked up and there he was—Dean Koontz. Walking in all by himself just like a regular guy. I walked up and welcomed him, then took him over to meet my sister.

Dean was really nice, shook her hand and asked her how she had broken her foot. She stammered a bit so I helped and said, “She fell in the bathroom at work.”

Oddly enough my sister still hasn’t forgiven me for telling him (it’s the truth). I feel absolutely no remorse and laugh every time I think of it. My poor sister puts up with a lot from me!

Dean did an amazing workshop for us. Everyone was impressed. Then when we announced that we had raised a nice chunk of money for the Women’s Transitional Center with Dean’s visit, and Dean matched the donation. After that, there was a line around the entire room to get books signed. Dean stayed until every book was signed and every picture taken.

He was exactly what we want our heroes to be—kind, generous and genuine.

What about you all? What was your experience meeting one of your heroes?

The first romance novel I remember reading was SWEET SAVAGE LOVE by Rosemary Rogers. My sister gave the book to me when I was fourteen. Totally inappropriate for that age, and of course I was hooked. I cut my teeth reading Nancy Drew and the various dog books like BIG RED and OID YELLER, but it wasn’t until my sister loaned me SWEET SAVAGE LOVE that I became addicted to reading.

Clearly all that romance reading corrupted me. Let me count the ways:

1) I’ve been happily married for 24 years.
2) I’ve never been arrested.
3) I haven’t appeared in any adult type films (that I know of!).
4) I stunned the heck out of my high school English teachers when I scored really high on those annoying tests in reading comprehension and critical thinking.
5) I read across all genres.
6) I read Harry Potter ONLY because it was being banned all over the place, and I LOVED IT.
7) I write books with—gasp—sex scenes.

Okay perhaps I’m more boring than morally bankrupt! What about you all? What was the first romance novel you read?

I’m trying to write a blog after spending the day moving my college-aged son into an upstairs apartment. College-aged son has a broken ankle which makes the whole move really, really challenging. Let’s not even talk about the weeks of stress building up to it mostly due to the broken ankle. The first doctor told us the ankle was only sprained and we absolutely did not need an x-ray, and that my son should start walking on the ankle as soon as possible.

Fast forward nearly two weeks later where the orthopedic doctor is NOT HAPPY that he was walking around on a broken ankle. (Hmm, I’m thinking I might still be a little peeved—my son is fine, time for me to move on!)

I am taking a class on Public Relations class, and as part of the homework, I bought some magazines and started paying more attention to pop culture again. I thumbed through some women’s magazines and here’s what I noticed…they are selling us a load of crap. Instant weight loss in various forms, creams that will remove 10 years—all the LIES we see everyday in magazines, on TV and all around us. This is one of my daily annoyances—that advertisers can lie and get away with it.

Uh, and people call romance novels unrealistic? Romance novels promise love and a happy ending in a book, and we call it FICTION. No one is lying and promising a happily ever after in real life. Any one else see the irony here or am I really overtired?

And by the way, I’ve had enough reality for one day—I’m off to read!

In the first couple years of my publishing career, I gave quite a few talks. It was a lot of fun as people really seem to enjoy meeting authors and they are very accepting of them being human (meaning they overlooked my faults and screw ups—like the time my blouse came unbuttoned, uh, never mind…) I have to say, romance readers tend to be the most well-read interesting people! I don’t do the talks as much anymore mostly because it cuts into my writing time.

One memory that stands out is the time I gave a talk at a very nice country club. I came in after their luncheon to see a room full of women were decked out in frilly dresses and hats. They were seated at large round tables with crisp white table cloths and being attended to by uniformed wait staff carrying silver coffee services. That’s about all I had time to observe before I had to go onstage, so I couldn’t get a good “feel” for my audience. I took a deep breath and launched into my spiel. Eventually I was able to get a feel for the room. Women are really good a giving visual cues and I was able to “connect” with them. I relaxed and enjoyed myself. They were a very gracious crowd.

But this one woman really stood out. She was dressed beautifully including lovely wide-brimmed hat. She carried herself as if were related to the Queen of England. But what really caught my attention?

She talked on her cell phone for the entire speech. Seriously. It didn’t seem like anyone at her table dared to ask her to Please Shut Up.

I certainly didn’t. After two years as co-president of a large chapter of Romance Writers of America, I am fully capable of controlling a room full of women. Let me tell you, this woman had a sense of entitlement that rivaled Scarlet O’Hara. I found myself watching her and having to remind myself that I WAS THE ONE ONSTAGE. LOL!

So how is it that this woman gets away with such blatant public rudeness? Why are we so fascinated with snobby, rich, rude people?

Just for fun—what would you all have done if you’d been in my shoes? Do you suppose she was a romance snob?

I graduated high school when I was 16—not because I’m all that smart, but because high school was a fairly miserable place for me. I wasn’t one of the cool kids for a lot of reasons. I will say it did give me the drive to work hard to graduate early, so it wasn’t all bad.

I vividly remember when one of the hot studs on campus got a little bit interested in me. I was so excited. And then his friends let him know that I wasn’t a cool girl, and I imagine not pretty enough too, and his interested fizzled.

That’s one of those things I don’t think about very often. If you’d asked me about it a month ago, I would have claimed I was over it, and had been for a long time.

So fast forward to now. The other day I’m watching a news conference and who do I see? It was the same guy who lost interest in me in high school because I wasn’t cool/pretty/whatever enough.

Only now he’s middle aged, and dude, middle age is not a good look for him.

Oh I know, that’s mean. And do I think middle age is a great look for me? Heck no. Nor did I ever think I was this shallow, but guess what? I really enjoyed the moment. I also got to thinking about romance novels. If I wrote that scene, my heroine would still be hot looking, and she’d be a successful reporter who recognized the middle aged man who had dropped her in high school. She would enjoy that moment!

Isn’t that what romances do? We identify with the slights our characters suffer because we’ve suffered them too? They makes us feel that we’re not alone, maybe not so ugly and undesirable after all. That’s a pretty powerful message to all women. Especially when later in the story, the ugly duckling in high school turns into a desirable woman who is valued for more than just her looks.

By the way, my story had a happy ending too. I’ve been married a long time to a man I love very much.

I won’t even ask if any of you have humiliating stories like mine (unless you want to share!), but do romances ever validate your feelings? Do you identify with the trials the heroines go through?

Hey all! I’m so thrilled to be a part of the Brava Website! What a collection of diverse and talented authors!

I first sold in mystery, writing The Samantha Shaw Mystery Series. That series was so much fun to write and even better, my fabulous editors, first Amy Garvey then Kate Duffy let me break the rules.

I had sex in the mysteries.

Wow, did that shock some people. A lot of fans loved it, and some fans asked for more. But I really needed to be careful to make sure the mystery outweighed the romance and sex because the books were first and foremost a mystery. I enjoyed writing mystery, but I also thought…What if I could write a romantic mystery and put as much romance in there as I wanted to?

Then I got the opportunity to write romantic mysteries in Brava, thanks to the awesome Kate Duffy. I’m having a great time. I really enjoy the challenge of building a romance with a strong mystery plot. It’s a heck of a lot of work to weave the mystery and romance tightly enough that one can’t exist without the other. I get to write hot sex, and hopefully use those scenes to move the plot forward and draw the readers farther into the story.

Brava is such an innovative line that allows authors to take the characters wherever they need to go to tell the story.

In a broader sense, I think this is something that the romance genre has been yearning for, and now we’re seeing more and more powerful stories that take us to unexpected places. Hot sex is a hot topic these days, but it seems like some of the rhetoric is missing the point. Sex is just a component of the growth of romance. Romances are now weaving in military thrillers, high stakes suspense, paranormal and fantasy, puzzling mysteries…the genre has broadened significantly. The characters who fall in love are more deeply involved in the world around them.
And that makes me fall in love with them all the more!

What about you? Do you find the romance genre today fresh and exciting?