Dear friends:

For all of you who’ve been waiting, this is the week: SHAMELESS is out in the bookstores now. It’s a big, sexy, historical-tinged regency that concludes my Banning Sisters Trilogy. The reviews have been fantastic, and I have to say that I absolutely love the heroine, Beth Banning, the hero, Neil Severin, and the whole story. I enjoyed writing it from the first word to the last, and I hope you love it as much as I do.

SHATTERED, my latest thriller, is on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction bestseller list as I write this (it’s been out for just a couple of weeks) and has a leading couple to die for: Lisa and Scott steam up the pages every time they’re together, so if you like your romantic suspense hot, you should enjoy that one, too.

Which brings me to the question I want to ask you: do you like contemporary thrillers better? Or big, sexy historicals? I love writing - and reading - both. Thrillers are definitely the bigger sellers right now. But are historicals on the comeback trail? My feeling is that they are. What do you think? And which do you prefer? I’d love to know.

I’m busy working on my latest book, JUSTICE, a thriller starring Jess and Mark from PURSUIT that should be out in early 2011. I hope to have it finished by the end of next month. If only life would quit happening, I might even get finished sooner. It’s been one thing after another since December, basically. But one thing I’ve learned over the course of my career is that if you just keep plugging away at it, the book gets finished eventually. And writing can serve as a wonderful refuge through hard times.

Sitting in my office looking out the window, all I can think of is, what a wonderful spring we’re having here in Kentucky! The grass is green, the dogwoods are blooming in bright pinks and dazzling whites, and the temperature is in the high seventies. Plus, since we’re the home of the Kentucky Derby, we have three weeks of wonderful celebrations coming up, beginning with Thunder Over Louisville (the country’s largest fireworks display, plus an air show and an all day celebration) this Saturday and ending with the Derby itself, on the first Saturday in May, when we all sashay around in huge picture hats sipping juleps from silver cups (or something like that). In Kentucky, we do spring up right.

I'll be giving away one signed copy of NIGHT MAGIC and one signed copy of DARK TORMENT to someone who comments.

Happy reading!

~Karen