The Irish Devil

Let’s make this perfectly clear: I was a happy, calm (more or less) person until I went to Tombstone, Arizona. I worked full-time as a computer consultant. I was a full-time Ph.D. student. (Yeah, so maybe I should have had my head examined.) I wrote lots and lots and lots of geeky jargon and I read tons – tons, I tell you! – of romance novels in my spare time. I was content.

Then came the family reunion and the trip to Tombstone. For some odd reason, it seemed every second or third tour guide had to tell the story of a specific miner’s widow who’d performed hair-raising deeds sufficiently well enough to escape the town alive. Everybody expressed the strongest admiration for her – but nobody ever said she was happy. In fact, it was pretty clear she’d been pretty miserable. Her big victory had been departure, not joy.

Now, I love visiting historical sites and I’ve heard a lot of true stories. But this one hit me harder than any other one. I didn’t want her to have simply survived – I wanted her to be happy. Unfortunately, the only way to give her a happily ever after was to retell her story myself, as fiction – and I so wasn’t a romance author. Writing prose featuring phrases like “the widget must” and “the widget shall” doesn’t prepare you for plot arcs and love scenes!

That’s when I told her to go away and be happy, having survived in real life.

She didn’t let me forget about her. She nagged me during my homework. She got in between me and my term projects. For two years, I fought her off, desperately reminding her exactly what I wrote during the day job and my total lack of fiction writing skills.

I think it was while I was sitting in traffic waiting to go home from class, that she knocked me over the head again: she announced she needed a man, the worst of bad boys, somebody who no one in polite society would ever accept as an eligible partí. But somebody who could keep the most brutal killer, the most cunning kidnapper away from her no matter how vicious the fight.

I nodded agreement, being much more interested in getting home at something approaching a reasonable hour. (Does anybody else have conversations with their characters in their cars late at night? I seem to do a lot of it.)

She announced, quite triumphantly, that he had to be Irish.

Irish??? Oooh. My brain came alive. Sexy men, smart and tough, accustomed to making a living in a strange country after seeing their own families and homes decimated by a great famine. Music. Horses. Somebody you could call “the devil” with affection.

I wanted to write their love story – because I needed to give him a happily ever after, too.

I started learning how to write fiction. I wound up dropping out of graduate school. (Yup, I left that Ph.D. program behind to write romance.) When the chance came, I pitched this story to the only editor in New York who might publish it – and, yes, I was quaking in my boots! But, lucky for me, Kate Duffy of Brava bought it.

It became The Irish Devil, the first of the four Devil books – The River Devil, The Southern Devil, and The Northern Devil. To my vast delight, I’ve even signed a contract for three more. All because a persistent voice took up residence in my head, back in Tombstone.

Diane Whiteside

Carly Phillips Returns........

Sophisticated, Sexy Fun Contemporary Romance. That’s what I love to read and so that is what I love to write. I consider myself fortunate to be able to write what I love. I’ve always been a huge reader but I didn’t realize there was a romance section of the bookstore when I was younger, so I’d read books and even if I loved a book all the way through, if the end disappointed me, I hated the story. Then one day I discovered that I could read romance and ALWAYS HAVE THE HAPPY ENDING.

What a concept! Writing was an even bigger concept and it took me seven years and ten manuscripts to sell. Somehow I thought selling was the hard part but in the eight years since my first published book and in the 15 years since I’ve been writing, I discovered that the writing itself is STILL hard. Every book presents its own challenges.

CROSS MY HEART and its sequel SEALED WITH A KISS were doubly hard because not only was I writing (a challenge in itself) but I was adding a little more suspense than I usually had in my books. Why? Because both books were originally scheduled to come out in hardcover and I wanted to try something different for my hardcover readers. Now I’m happy to say that both books are being released in paperback – SEALED WITH A KISS for the first time – which my readers have really responded well to. So back to the challenges of adding mystery/suspense.

Just like when I started writing, I learned a lot of lessons along the way, writing these stories and I hope my readers enjoy them. As for me, after these two books, I’m going back to writing lighter, sexier books because after a lot of thought, sophisticated, sexy fun contemporary romance is what I love best. But I hope you’ll like CROSS MY HEART and SEALED WITH A KISS too.

So what kind of romance do you love to read?

For a sneak peek at CROSS MY HEART, visit http://www.carlyphillips.com/ and check out the video trailer and remember to click on the Free Reader Giveaway at the top of the page – and see what I have in store for readers who purchase CROSS MY HEART!

Carly

Spirited Away with Cindy Miles

Being that Spirited Away is my debut novel, I've had numerous people ask, "What inspired you to write it?" Most authors, I imagine, have inspirations for the setting and characters of their books. Some may use that particular inspiration just once, and others use it multiple times, in various and somewhat altered forms. I have a few inspirations, but by far, the one dearest to me is Dunnottar Castle in Stonehaven, Scotland, on the wild North Sea coast. I can only vaguely describe the feeling I experienced when, while driving along the narrow, winding lane hugging the coast, this awesome sight came into view. Even having viewed loads of photos of it, I wasn't prepared for the raw beauty of it. NOTHING compares to the sight of it in "real life". I had to pull over, stop the car and literally catch my breath. My insides were tense and as corn-doggie as it sounds, tears came to my eyes. I knew, at that moment, that I'd found not only the setting for the book of my heart, but of the hero, who stole my breath away just as easily as the majestic ruins. The two went hand-in-hand. And so Tristan de Barre and his Dreadmoor Castle came to life.

I hadn't started writing SPIRITED AWAY when I first laid eyes on Dunnottar, but ideas swamped me as I sat in that car, staring at a fortress built by strong medieval hands more than 800 years before. Strangely enough, I didn't know the history of the castle until much later. I later learned the Caledonians controlled an original ancient fortress on the site in 84AD, and in 1296, William Wallace and his men reclaimed the present Dunnottar keep from the English-but I didn't know any of that at the time I visited-and I'm glad. I wanted to create my own garrison, my own knights, and my own history and circumstances, without being led by actual historical events or figures. And so I did.

While staying at the Dunnottar Mains Farm B&B, which sits directly across the cliffs from the castle, I set my clock for 5:45 A.M., pulled on warm clothes (it was October and CHILL-LEE!) and walked to the fortress. It was quite a trekk, as the gatehouse is more at ground level, and the castle is on the ancient shelf of rock. No, the castle grounds aren't open that early in the morning--I hopped the gate. I didn't walk amidst the buildings, as the gatehouse WAS locked (I did later that day, though!). But I found a particularly special spot to sit and ABSORB. It was cold, windy, the gulls were deafening, the air fabulous and salty, and as I sat, completely alone, watching the sun rise over the North Sea, with the sky turning brilliant shades of red and purple and orange, and Dunnottar in the foreground, I saw Tristan, striding briskly across the bailey, helm tucked under his arm, sword slapping his thigh, chain mail creaking with each step. I half-expected to be sucked back in time--and more than half wanted to be. I stayed there for a couple of hours, envisioning scenes, people, daily chores, horses, knights training, the clang of swords, swearing, and hearty laughter. And I thought of a modern gal being thrown in the mix of all that medieval stuff, and loving every single minute of it. My heroine, Andi, was born.
I'd had a time-travel in mind at first, but soon the idea of Tristan suffering an unfair death and worse, a curse, came to mind. But I knew the kind of guy Tristan was-powerful and so full of himself, even death couldn't snuff his pride, chivalry, nor his fierce honor. So even as a ghost, Tristan continued to be the way he always had been in life. Strong. Loyal. And up to his ears in chivalry--rusty perhaps, but still there in all its glory.

I started the original draft of SPIRITED AWAY as soon as I got home, and that was in the fall of 2000. Several things in the book changed from then to the book it is now; revisions, new ideas, etc, but one thing has ALWAYS remained the same: Tristan. His character is as strong to me as if he were a real person. Maybe because I've "known" him for so long now, but, well...you'll see when you (hopefully!) read the book.

Dreadmoor, though, is not in Scotland. I sort of slid Dunnottar/Dreadmoor down the coast a ways, and settled it in northern England. While Tristan's mother is Scottish, his father is French-Norman/Scottish, so I wanted a sort of "neutral" area for Dreadmoor-and chose the north of England.

Spirited Away officially releases May 1st. I invite you to meet my ghostly hero,Tristan de Barre, and his charming, loyal garrison of knights...and Dr. Andrea Monroe, the woman who proudly and quite sneakily steals all of their hearts-especially Tristan's.

I'd love for you to visit me at http://www.cindy-miles.com/


Cindy

SPIRITED AWAY

NAL Eclipse

MAY 2007

www.cindy-miles.com