I’ve so enjoyed these last few blogs. All the wonderful March Presents stories making the USA Today Bestsellers List, Natalie’s Heroes Poll, and Trish’s beautiful Santorini pics…  Those two begged the question ‘Where to next?’ when it came to choosing glamorous international locations for future Presents stories. Paris, Venice, New York, where?

I’ve a Presents story out now (Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate) with the second story in that duet on the shelves in April (Revealed: A Prince and a Pregnancy). The first tale is set in Champagne, France. The second story starts in Sydney and moves to fictional Maracey (which is loosely based on Andorra). There was this Prince, you see, in need of a Principality.  I’ve also set stories in Hong Kong, Singapore, and on gorgeous Greek Islands.

Where else captures your imagination as a potential Presents setting for a story? Let me show you a few places that capture mine!

Rio de Janeiro (at Christmas or during Carnival)

Moscow (as in ‘Meet me in Red Square…’)

Venice (Do you really need to ask when?)

Paris (City of love)

Shanghai (for Chinese New Year or the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts!)

Note from Amy: both of Kelly’s in her Hot Bed of Scandal duet, Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate and Revealed: A Prince and a Pregnancy are are available now at both eHarlequin.com and the eHarlequin eBook Store.

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Writing is often a lonely occupation.  The people in your head, while fascinating, can only provide a limited amount of company.  I mean, it’s not like I can take my hero and heroine out to lunch and talk about the latest and greatest Hollywood scandal or ask their advice about what I’m planning to wear to the RT Convention.  They won’t go shopping with me and talk me into buying those great boots. Or tell me that those pants really do make my butt look HUGE.   (I’m crazy, but I’m not that crazy yet.  The voices in my head aren’t that strong.  I love my characters, and they may feel real at times, but I do understand they’re not really real people.)

Many writers are introverts, so the long hours alone are great for them. They thrive on it.  Me, I’m an extrovert in a career where there’s no water cooler, no one in the office next door, no one to talk to when I take a break for lunch.  Don’t get me wrong – I need the silence and solitude in order to write, but wandering through the house alone all day actually starts to wear on me after a while.

Thank dog for the internet!  Thank dog for the social networking sites and  writers’ loops which function as the break room for those of us who work at home (and can’t really leave the house because we haven’t bothered to shower or put on real clothes yet . Yeah, this is the glamorous life, folks!) And because the Presents authors are spread all over the world, there’s always someone somewhere ready to chat.  If it’s midnight here and all my US author friends are asleep, the Aussies are awake down under where it’s tomorrow afternoon.  And if I’m really pulling an all-nighter, by two am the Brits are up checking their email with their first cup of tea in hand.   Of course, the downside is that there have been many mornings where I’ve gone to check my email first thing only to find that something important has happened while I slept and I’m now twenty messages behind!

How did writers survive before the internet?  No, don’t tell me.  I don’t want to know.

Being able to contact other authors is a blessing for newbie authors trying to swim in the deep end without a life jacket.  I wouldn’t have wanted to go it alone. They keep you sane at the same time they tell you what you’re supposed to be doing and what’s coming around the bend next.   (And, usually, they’re pretty forgiving of the overuse of exclamation points that just happen when Your! Book! Has! A! Cover!!!!!) They’re still important six, ten, thirty books down the road.  They’re your coworkers as well as your support group. Sadly , though, there’s no Christmas Party.

Slightly off-topic tangent: I’m also quite lucky to have a good friend who also writes for Presents here in my hometown.  I can honestly say I knew Lynn Raye Harris before she became Lynn-Raye-Harris-Who-Won-The-Instant-Seduction-Contest.    Right now, Lynn lives four miles from my house.  After I move into my new house on  April 1^st, she’ll be literally right up the street (walking distance actually, if I wasn’t completely lazy)! Lynn and I – for business purposes, only,  of course – lunch a lot.  It keeps the writing mojo flowing. Refills the well.  In fact, my mojo feels a little sluggish and the well’s running low. I need to schedule a lunch date soon. (Hey, Lynn, call me!)

Even better, Lynn will go shopping with me and talk me into buying those great boots. Or out of buying those pants that make me look fat. 

So, I have little reason to be lonely or curse the silence.  My virtual friends are always around the water cooler waiting to chat about everything from books to life.  It keeps me sane. Thank you, internet.

Now I just need to work on staying off the internet and finishing the book!

Out of curiosity, how many virtual friends do you have? Folks you know really well because you chat with them online all the time, but you’ve never heard their voice or seen them face-to-face?

Kimberly

Note: Kimberly’s latest North American release Magnate’s Mistress…Accidentally Pregnant! was out in February — watch for her next UK book What Happens in Vegas… from Modern Heat in August!

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Some places you travel to and you just know it would be the perfect setting. Santorini was like that. When I arrived on the ferry from Crete, I swear the characters from His Mistress for a Million were right there on the dock waiting to meet me, they were so real. Or at least the hero, Andreas Xenides, was. Poor Cleo was still off cleaning bathrooms in a shabby London dive. Little did she know that was all about to change!

So how did I know Santorini was *the* place? Tell you what, I might let a few photos explain.

In short, how could I not set a book in Santorini? I just love the way the story turned out. I hope readers do too.

Trish Morey is thrilled that His Mistress in a Million is her first USA Today Bestseller! Thanks to everyone who made it possible!

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March is another great month for Harlequin Presents! Check out the new books that hit the USA Today bestseller list this week:

#65: Greek Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress by Lynne Graham

#72: Marchese’s Forgotten Bride by Michelle Reid

#88: The Sheikh’s Impatient Virgin by Kim Lawrence

#92: His Mistress for a Million by Trish Morey

#100: Public Affair, Secretly Expecting by Heidi Rice

#107: The Innocent’s Surrender by Sara Craven

#111: Bought: Destitute yet Defiant by Sarah Morgan

#119: Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate by Kelly Hunter

Congrats!

~Amy

I’m busy planning a new story which is such a fun part of the process. I love ‘designing’ the world where the story is set, what the season is, why the heroine is there… but best of all… what the hero is like!!!

Where he comes from – his family and country are really important factors to consider, and at the moment I’m focussing on the location. I have been toying with the idea of a Spanish hero. Generally I write Kiwi, Aussie or British heroes – mainly because I’m most familiar with those countries. But one of my most favourite places in the world is Barcelona and I’m itching to set a story there. Mind you, I’m also very keen on the South of France; Florence, Italy; some remote Greek isle; New York; or possibly St Petersburg…

Yes, there’s a bit of wish fulfilment going on here and you can see my problem! So many options make for a really tough decision! But I’ve figured out a solution – yes, I thought I’d ask which gorgeous foreigners do readers love the most?

Are you the kind of reader who picks up every book with ‘Greek’ or ‘sheik’ in the title? Are you intrigued by some of those unfathomable Russian types roaming round? Or is it whispers of Italian in a delicious deep bass that make you melt?

As a bit of fun I thought I’d put the question straight to you. So please vote on the poll now and let’s see how they all stack up! Do comment and let me know your reason for your vote as well if you’d like, or if there any I’ve missed that you’d like to see more of in Presents and Presents Extra stories! Thanks so much for voting!!!

Hands up every author here who’s been asked the question ‘where do you get your ideas from?’ Yup, can see a lot of hands there.

Well, for me, the original idea for a story usually kicks off when a very vivid opening scene pops into my head. The pivotal moment in my characters’ lives which throws them together:

An editorial assistant hiding in the Ritz hotel bathroom of a reclusive best-selling author.

A market-stall holder climbing into the garden of her unknown new neighbour’s house to find her landlady’s missing cat.

The manager of a struggling pub theatre performing a singing telegram in a posh Mayfair gentlemen’s club and getting mistaken for a stripper.

The opening hook’s the thing that gets my creative juices flowing — and the characters and their conflict will build and evolve from there. They’ve got themselves into this predicament, but why did that editorial assistant end up in that bathroom? And what kind of person would risk getting arrested to find a missing cat?

But for the very first time when writing my sixth book, Public Affair, Secretly Expecting, that’s not how it happened. My hero and heroine were already fully formed before I started the story — which left me in the unenviable position of having to shove them together even when they were both begging me not to.

Could I be that Machiavellian? Could I really harden my heart against characters I’d come to love and put them into a situation they could end up hating me for? Because I’m ordinarily a very nice person you know. Honest.

Hmm? Well, let’s see what happened…

It all started when Juno Delamare appeared while I was writing her best mate Daisy’s story in Hot-Shot Tycoon, Indecent Proposal.

At the time, Juno didn’t even have a second name. She was just Daisy’s cautious, earnest, tomboy friend. Juno had been hurt badly at as teenager and it had made her prickly and pessimistic and extremely wary of good-looking men, but her honesty, her fortitude and her emotional integrity instantly engaged me. I really liked Juno, she had guts and a tender heart and she deserved her own happy ever after. So, as Daisy’s story unfolded, I began to realise I would have to find Juno a man of her own who could coax her out of her cocoon.

So far, so good. Everything was looking sweet and sunny and me and Juno were in perfect accord.

Then lo and behold, Connor Brody, Daisy’s gorgeous Irish hero, mentioned he had a long-lost brother who he hadn’t seen since their miserable childhood, but who was now a famous actor. Now, while at first this seemed a remarkably lucky coincidence, I quickly realised neither Juno or I had had a man as dangerous as Mac Brody in mind when we set out to find her one true love. How would Juno cope with this brooding Irish bad boy-turned-Hollywood star who had sealed off his heart at an early age and seduced women only to discard them the instant things got serious?

And that’s when things got messy.

Because there was Juno, accusation sharpening her wide emerald eyes, yelling: ‘You cannot be serious? Haven’t I suffered enough? No way. He’s not the one. He can’t possibly be.’ At which point I had to close my ears to Juno’s pleas — and give her a nice hefty shove into the deep end.

Mac for his part wasn’t too pleased with me either. In fact he was silently horrified. But being a guy — and a fairly arrogant one at that — he didn’t make too much of a fuss (at first), probably because he figured he could seduce Juno and then walk away from her, as he had from all the other people in his life who had ever cared for him. And by the time he realised it wasn’t going to be that easy, he was up to his neck too — and sinking fast.

But you know what? Once I’d done the dirty deed, I really started to enjoy myself. Despite all their misgivings these two were meant to be together. I was being cruel to be kind. And if I got a kick out of watching them struggle to survive the emotional tidal wave that promptly knocked them both flat, that was just a fringe benefit.

So there you have it. Juno and Mac had to wade through hell and high-water to get their happy ever after — but they got their in the end. And Heidi Rice discovered she’s not that nice a person after all. In fact she can be quite horrid…

But only when absolutely necessary, you understand!

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Hi, my name is Amanda Thiessen and I am a part of the Harlequin Presents marketing team.

First off I wanted to congratulate all of our wonderful authors who have recently made the USA Today Bestsellers list, what a great achievement!  It is fabulous to see Harlequin Presents finally being recognized in the industry.

On another note I wanted to talk to you, our most avid fans, about a recent change that you may have noticed within the Harlequin Presents line.  In the month of May there are a few less Presents stories available than you may be used to, instead of 8 titles per month we will now be publishing 6 titles each month.  We decided on this change for a few different reasons as we felt very strongly that we weren’t being fair to our authors or readers; with so many titles out there we noticed it was becoming difficult for our readers to keep up and we didn’t want anyone to miss out on any of the fantastic stories that were being offered.

As Harlequin Presents continues to be such an important part of Harlequin (a bestselling imprint since the 1970s!) we are continuously taking notes on different trends to keep this line at its best. For instance, continuities like the Royal House of Karedes and the 2-in-1s we’re offering this year are a couple other recent things we’ve done to keep the line fresh without changing the things that our readers love about classic Presents books.

We hope you continue to enjoy all of the stories from our now USA Today Bestselling Authors!

~Amanda

Note: We’re kicking off March a little early with this post by Sarah Morgan ~Amy

by Sarah Morgan, author of Bought: Destitute yet Defiant (Harlequin Presents, March 2010)

I love a strong man.  I don’t necessarily mean muscles (oh go on then, if you push me I’ll admit that muscles are pretty good, too….) – what I really mean is strength of character; a man who won’t crumble under pressure and who keeps a cool head in a crisis.  In our modern, politically correct world, it’s frowned on for a woman to admit she’d like a man to slay her dragons.  We’re supposed to do it ourselves, while raising the children, emptying the dishwasher, sweeping the snow from the drive and earning a living.  We’re eager to prove we can do it all ourselves and it can be really infuriating to find that a good looking, broad shouldered guy has already lopped the head off a dragon while you’re still reaching for your sharpest kitchen knife (that happened to me only yesterday and boy was I mad.  The dragon wasn’t too pleased, either.).

The truth is that slaying your own dragon is just another thing to add to a woman’s ever growing ‘to-do’ list.  Yes, we’re in the era of the kick-butt heroine, but the truth is it’s hard to walk and kick butt (especially if you’re wearing stilettos) and the problem with having the ability to do anything is that you invariably end up doing everything – which means you’re permanently stressed and exhausted.  And there’s nothing like a little help around the place when things get tough.

So is there still a place for a Knight in shining armour in the modern world?  I think so.  This is a man who is willing to do anything to protect his woman, and who in their right mind would reject that depth of physical and emotional commitment? In Harlequin Presents, when an alpha hero focuses his strength on the protection of the heroine, it’s a demonstration not of power, but of love.

In my March release for Harlequin Presents, Bought: Destitute yet Defiant, the heroine Jessie has been using all her skills to survive in a rough, tough world but now she’s in real trouble and the only man who can help her face the danger is her greatest enemy, Silvio Brianza, the man responsible for the death of her brother.  Silvio feels a fierce sense of responsibility towards this woman and nothing is going to shake him from his vow to protect her, even though she doesn’t want his protection.  Allowing herself to reach out to him is the hardest thing Jessie has ever done, but she realises that the dragons in her life are just too big for her to slay without some serious help.

Do you have any knight in shining armour stories from your own life?  Have there been times when you’ve been grateful that a man has stepped between you and that dragon?  Or why not tell me about your favourite knight in shining armour movie moments.  I love Daniel Day Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans, protecting Cora Munroe, and Daniel Craig risking life and limb to rescue the Camille from the fire in the most recent Bond film, Quantum of Solace.

A big thank you to Amy for inviting me here today, and if you have any stories to share, I’d love to hear them!

Sarah

x

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Blackmail – it’s a nasty word, first recorded in 1552 when it referred to the practice of ‘persuading’ farmers on the borders of England and Scotland into paying tribute to freebooting chiefs.  Payment meant that that particular chief would spare the farmer and his land from plunder and possible death.  Today it’s a crime that’s despised.

So how did it turn up in the title of a twenty-first century romance?

In THE RICH MAN’S BLACKMAILED MISTRESS Kain Gerard doesn’t demand money from Sable Martin.  He wants something much more important.  His younger cousin Brent — like a brother to him – has just sold his interest in an internet empire.  And now Brent is spending up large on Sable.  Is she a suitable prospect for a wife?  It doesn’t seem so; hints of a scandal involving blackmail swirl around her.  And in New Zealand a partner of two years is entitled to a half share of the assets – so Sable could well be intent on plunder, and Brent might be heading for a costly broken heart.

What’s an affectionate cousin to do?  For Kain, there’s one sure way of finding out just what the lady wants.  Fighting fire with fire – turn the lady’s penchant for blackmail against her.  She’s eager to become an events organiser, and for that she needs an irreproachable reputation.  So Kain blackmails her into his life.

With unexpected results for everyone.

Blackmail is a tricky subject to write about – like revenge.  To be successful, both have to be used carefully, and for reasons that are understandable.  And Kain might have taken a different course if he hadn’t seen Sable, and realised just how very wrong she would be for Brent.  And how very right for him…

Do you think blackmail is ever defensible in novels when used by a hero or heroine?

As with so many of my novels, this book is set in New Zealand.  Sable and Kain meet in Auckland, a city I lived in for some years.  Kain’s glorious old house is set on the Mahurangi estuary, part of the beautiful coastline close to where I grew up, and his holiday house and refuge is above one of Auckland’s wild, dramatic west coast beaches, known for their black volcanic sand and crashing surf.  And it’s set in summer, my favourite season.

Actually, I set each of my books in the season I’m writing it in.  So I’m writing about summer right now – and because in New Zealand over the past few years St. Valentine’s Day has become more and more popular with lovers of all sorts, I may well refer to it in the one I’m working on now.  So what did you do to celebrate Valentine’s Day?

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One of the questions I’m asked most as a writer is: where do you get your ideas? There’s no easy answer to this question because ideas come haphazardly, from various places. Some books start with a character, or a bit of dialogue, or a snippet of a scene. Some ideas fall wonderfully, fully formed straight into my head–that happens rarely though, alas! In the case of The Greek Tycoon’s Reluctant Bride, the idea or the story came from a place–and a memory.

It was the summer of 1994, and I was traveling around Europe with some college friends (and my two brothers who kept an eye on me) after spending a term in London studying Shakespeare. We’d been making our way through Eastern Europe, and on a youthful whim decided to take a flight to Athens from Budapest. However, after only a few hours in hot, dusty, crowded Athens, my brother suggested we take a ferry from nearby Piraeus out to the Cyclades Islands. And with the insouciance of a 20-year-old, I said farewell to Athens without so much as glimpsing the Acropolis.

We took a city bus to Piraeus (picture standing for nearly an hour on a crowded bus in the height of summer, wearing a 40 lb backpack!) and ended up by the Piraeus docks at around ten o’clock at night. And let me tell you… that moment was magical.

After enduring the heat and dust of the city, the air was cool and fresh, and the ferry boats were all preparing to sail. The sky had turned violet and the boats were strung with fairy lights; ferrymen were shouting out unknown and alluring destinations in desperate attempts to entice travelers such as ourselves onto their boat. We hurriedly bought some bread and cheese at a stall and jumped on the nearest boat. It happened to be sailing for Naxos.

Piraeus

As we pushed off from the dock, the lights strung across the boat were reflected in the dark water, so the whole world looked as if it were glittering. Standing on the deck, I felt a bit like Odysseus.  The world seemed full of adventure, as if anything were possible, and it was that memory that inspired The Greek Tycoon’s Reluctant Bride. I capture a little bit of that memory in a scene in the book:

The air was salty and surprisingly fresh, and the voices of the ferry sailors carried across the water.

‘Mykonos! Mykonos at eleven o’clock!’

‘Amorgos! Ten o’clock! Leaving now!’

They were raucous siren calls, Althea thought, to places she’d never been but which sounded exotic, exciting. They reminded her of that first freedom she’d felt on the research ship: the endless expanse of water, the wonderful possibility of being something new, of being herself.

She hadn’t been on a ship since.

Althea, the heroine of The Greek Tycoon’s Reluctant Bride, has been held back by the tragic circumstances of her life, and marrying Demos Atrikes offers her a chance at opportunity and possibility and even hope. This idea emerged directly from that poignant memory of my own life, when I was young and adventurous and my whole life stretched before me as I stood on the deck of a ship sailing to an unknown destination. That scene in The Greek Tycoon’s Reluctant Bride, when Althea first begins to realize what Demos can offer her, is really the touchstone of the book.

What makes a memory stand out in your mind? Do you remember certain details about how you felt, or where you were, or what someone said? Maybe a certain scent or taste takes you back to a particular poignant memory? And have you ever had a memory really encapsulate an idea or time of your life? Tell me about it!

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