Today is the release date for all the February Brava titles. Bare Facts by Katherine Garbera, Extreme Danger by Shannon McKenna, Cosmic Sex by Karen Kelley and Right Here, Right Now by HelenKay Dimon are available today.

Recently I had a chance to chat about these exciting sexy books with a very high profile talk show host. Here’s a snippet of that interview.

O: What makes these titles so exciting?

KG: They feature dynamic heroes and gutsy heroines who aren’t afraid to go after what they want.

O: Are these heroines based on the lives of the authors who wrote them?

KG:Well all of us authors lead very exciting lives but I personally have never chased an assassin down the street with a semi-automatic weapon in my hand.

O: What makes the Brava line so exciting?

KG:Well having an visionary editor like Kate Duffy at the helm is a great start. She encourages her authors to push their writing to the limit and gives us all a lot freedom in our writing.

O:I’m sure this books are going to be thrilling readers. Good luck to you and the other authors.

KG: Thanks.

***Disclaimer…this is a wax figure of Oprah Winfrey features in London’s Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.

Happy reading!

Kathy

Ahoy mateys!

I interupt my DMB talk to bring you this…it’s International Talk Like A Pirate Day. I’m not making this up. Isn’t this the funniest thing you’ve ever heard?

I have to admit that talking like a pirate isn’t something I’ve ever really thought about doing. But it’s a lot of fun to think about adults talking all day like a pirate. Apparently it started has a joke until Dave Barry got wind of it and put it in one of his columns.

Here’s a link to the article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070918/od_nm/pirates1_dc

I’m not sure what to say here…except that if all pirates looked liek Johnny Depp I would gladly be kidnapped by one and live on his ship at sea!

Kathy

Have you ever noticed that everyone loves a good love story?  Since you are visiting this blog I’m guessing you do love romance just as I do.  Falling in love has a rush associated with it that nothing else compares with. I don’t know about you but I read and write romance because I get a little jolt every time the couple on the page gets together.  Every time they realize they love each other and want to make a life together.

 Recenlty my faith in happily-ever-after was tested.  My marriage of 17 years broke up under some really nasty circumstances.  I have a good friend, actually one of my best-friends, who also found her marriage of 12 years crumbling and we find ourselves two romance writers wondering what the heck happened?  How did happily-ever-after go so wrong.

 Yet we both still believe in the power of love and that happily-ever-after does exist.  I see it every day in the people around me.  The couple across the street who are so cute in the way they talk to each other and joke with each other and always love each other.  My parents who have been together forever and still love each other. 

 I see it this new man in my life who has made me believe that sometimes Mr. Right is right there beside you all along.  And in my friend’s new man who is showing her that love should always be an adventure.

 So what about you?  How do you look at love and happily-ever-after?  Is it a myth or can it be found?

Katherine  

Okay if you’ve visited this site before then you already know I love the Dave Matthews Band. And this week will be a tribute to them because I’m going to the concert on Saturday night! I can’t wait. The last few years I’ve been travelling whenever the DMB would be in my area. It was like a huge cosmic conspiracy to keep me from hearing them live. I’m joking of course!

Recently my good pal, Nancy, made a huge new sale to Avon books for a story she loves and to celebrate I sent her a song by DMB called Dancing Nancies…see how DMB fits for all occassions!

Here’s a link to their myspace page in case you haven’t heard of DMB and want to check them out. http://myspace.com/davematthewsband

I recommend listening to Dancing Nancies today. Because posting this blog is starining my technical web-savvy abilities I can’t post a clip of it here. But check out their site or iTunes and preview it.

Happy listening today!

Kathy

I read a column by Garrison Keillor the other day that was particularly apropos. I had just come off of a deadline for a book and I had what I like to think of has braindead head. I was reading magazines because short articles and pictures are about all I can handle until I refill the word pool in my mind.

So this is the opening line of Keillor’s article: “I know nothing about what is going on in the country. I hear nothing, I have nothing to say, I am a writer locked up with a book that is due on Tuesday, so I’m taking a break.”

His advice in this column is to get out and do something. When I’m on deadline I punish myself with staying in my office at my computer even when I’m not writing. I mean I’m on deadline so getting up and going anywhere is out of the question. With this book I just turned in I was really stuck and locked in a spiral of negative thinking.

I was talking on the phone with a friend and he said get out of your office. I said but my book is due and I have a lot of pages left to write. And he said you’re not writing. And I was like you’re write but I might start writing. It was a pretty funny conversation where I tried to talk myself in to staying stagnate. Staying in my office to wait for whatever but writing is a dynamic art form. The words come from a well deep inside that can only be filled by getting out of the office and living and interacting.

This probably seems silly to some of you, but writing is very isolating at times. When the story is flowing and the characters are alive in a writer’s head there is no place more exciting than sitting in front of the computer capturing every word, but when the words stop and there’s a brick wall where the plot used to be sitting in the office is a recipe for disaster.

I did finally get out of my house on Sunday and I went for swim which my friend suggested. Now I’m a a swimmer from a long time ago, I swam competitively from the 7th grade on . When I was about 14 I started making up stories in my head while I was at the two hour swim practice every afternoon. As I did the laps our coach assigned I was concentrating not on my strokes and on improving my times in the pool. But on the characters I was creating in my head. They were a version of fan-fiction because they were inspired by books I’d read or t.v. shows I watched.

But for me that is where I trace the beginning of my storytelling. Those swim practices where I’d entertain myself while swimming up and down the pool. And going swimming last weekend when I was stuck was the perfect thing to get back to where I needed to be.

I came back from swimming laps (I was pitiful by the way…only 15 minutes of straight lap swimming and I was out of breath! Only one length of butterfly and my arms felt like spaghetti!) And found that my story was unlocked again and the words flowed out onto the page.

It’s funny how thrity minutes out of my office was more productive than the two hours I’d spent staring at the screen trying to will words onto the page.

Is there anything like that for you? Where you stare so hard at the problem you can’t see the answer but as soon as you step away it appears?

Enjoy your Saturday!

Kathy

Lately I’ve been pondering how nice it is to have good girlfriends who you can always count on. And recently I was inducted into a very exclusive group…the Evelettes. Now I can’t tell you too much about the group (remember it’s exclusive!) but they are a bunch of romance writers who are inclined to sit up late at night at conference and talk and laugh and cry. They are the kind of woman who you can count on whatever the situation is.

I’ve been working on a series of books for Brava that are loosely inspired by Charlie’s Angels. I’m sorry I’m 30 something and grew up with the t.v. series which wasn’t campy at all. And showed these really pretty girls saving the day. Back then I wanted to be Kate Jackson when I grew up.

In the series I’m working on the women of Liberty Investigations share that same bond that I do with the Evelettes. They know they can count on each other no matter what. The ladies of Liberty Investigations also know that they can save the day like Kate Jackson and the other Charlie’s Angels did.

It’s a lot of fun to take something I loved so much as a girl and that really influenced the woman I became. Seeing women take on a “man’s” role really was empowering back then. My daughter (she’s 15) has grown up thinking that women can kick butt. She’s used to seeing Lara Croft or Sydney Bristow on Alias or even Lois Lane on Smallville. And I think it’s because of those early women like Charlie’s Angels that we have that today.

Do you have a group like the Evelettes who you know are always there?

Happy Friday!

Kathy

So is everyone enjoying the start of the weekend? I have my usual chores as well as some pages to write today. I usually like to do a little cleaning and then get out of the house to go to a movie. What do you do on a Saturday? Sports with the kids, lunch with friends, check out the mall or do something outdoorsy?

Let me know.

Kathy

I had the chance to go to London in July to visit an old friend (Hi, Rob!) and do a little research for an upcoming book I’m working on for Brava. I’ve always longed to go to the United Kingdom and enjoyed my visit. Even if it was a bit soggy. Here are some pictures of my trip along with my comments about it.

First of all let me say that it’s odd not to have trash cans on the street. I understand why there aren’t any (terrorist used to plant bombs in the trash cans) but carrying around empty water bottles in my purse was cumbersome! At Waterloo Station you had to pay to go to the bathroom. This probably makes me sound very much the gauche-American but hey, I am one! Paying to go to toilet seemed funny to me. Here’s a photo of me in front of the London Eye. My 15 year-old daughter kindly pointed out that my hair looks crazy–in my defense it was windy that day!

They had record rains while I was in the UK, but I still managed to see quite a few sites…including this one which Harry Potter fans will recognize. My 15 year-old, you remember her–the hair police, is a huge Harry Potter fan and since she couldn’t come with me on this trip I went to King’s Cross Station for her.

London was a fascinating and busy city. What I enjoyed most about it were the areas away from the touristy locations. There was this wonderful path in St. James Park that reminded me a bit of the mall area in D.C. and Central Park. Of course much cleaner than Central Park. I liked strolling down the path and just feeling the cool breeze ruffling my hair. Here is a photo I took that I think captures the peaceful feeling I had at that moment. What’s amazing to me is that I was in the middle of London!

I also got out and saw a bit of the English countryside.

And took in Stonehenge which to be honest was a bit of a disappointment. I wanted a mystical feeling from the place and instead felt really touristy. But here’s a photo of me there!

The trip was a lot of fun and after 15 years of friendship Rob and I have discovered we have a bit more between us. I’ll write more about that in another post.

So have any of you waited for an adventure? And if so, what was the result of finally going on it? Was it what you expected or more??

Kathy

If you’ve been stopping by this site over the last few months you will notice that I haven’t been updating it like I used to. I’m sorry to say that my marriage of 17 years fell apart in April and I’ve been dealing with that as well as writing some books that will come out next year. So I kind of didn’t do a lot of stuff with the website.

Thank you to everyone who read the Mistress books from Desire and took the time to write to me about them. Those books were so much fun to write. From the time I was a really little girl I always wanted to be a rich man’s woman. I didn’t think in terms of being married, but I knew I wanted a rich, powerful man to take care of me. Silly isn’t it!?

I mean I’m a femininist now and can definitely take care of myself but still it’s a fantasy I cling too. The thought of not having to do it all just because I can.

I’m very excited about my two upcoming fall titles. The first one is a sequel to BODY HEAT. It’s called SEX WITH A STRANGER. It is just as hot as BODY HEAT was. This time Liam O’Rourke is in the hot seat for romance. He’s in Sin City–Las Vegas–to investigate a suspected serial arsonist and finds himself falling in love with a woman who’s not his type at all.

But…what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas right? But Jane Monte isn’t the kind of woman a man easily forgets and for the first time in his adult life Liam has met someone who can compete with his love of fighting fires.

The cover for the book is absolutely gorgeous! Very sexy guy with a great chest.

To welcome myself back to the site I have five copies of SEX WITH A STRANGER that I will send to the first five readers who email me.

Kathy

In September my release from the Harlequin-NASCAR line will be hitting the book shelves. Last fall I was lucky enough to attend the Dickies 500 at Texas Motorspeedway.

The thing I liked best about being at the track was the size of it. It was huge and the sounds reverberated through that space which had been almost empty on Thursday and filled it completely on Sunday. I liked the way everyone was so friendly in the pits and garages. And how every person I asked even the simplest questions too had time to answer me.

My story involves some cheating…believe it or not I wrote it before all the fining that happened earlier this year at Daytona!! So I talked to a couple of officials. They gave me all kinds of advice and ruled out a couple of scenarios I’d been toying with.

I spent four days going to the track and really enjoyed the indepth behind the scenes look inside NASCAR. I took some photos which I’m posting here when I can figure out how to post them!!!

My family are huge NASCAR fans and always root for Jr. to win. I was able to bring my dad with me to the track and I know he had a great time there. Down in the middle of the action with the drivers he’s always loved and had seen so many times on t.v. or from the stands.

So are there any NASCAR fans here? What’s the thing you like best about it? For me it’s so all about family. My earliest memories are of watching the races with my dad, grandpa and uncles.

Kathy