“I Remember Mama”–Do any of you remember that TV show way back when or the even older black and white movie of the Swedish immigrant family in San Francisco? Lyn Cote here–This is the month we celebrate mothers and I want to share a fond story of my complex mother. I must have been around… Read More
I don’t know exactly what prompted me to write about a ballet dancer, only that once I had the idea, I couldn’t get it out of my head. It just felt…right! Talia came to me fully formed as a character, with her energy, her bendy yoga in the living room, and her total inability to… Read More
Theresa and I met online about five years ago, thanks to a mutual admiration for each other’s work. We became critique partners and developed a friendship that went beyond writing. We encouraged each other through the querying and publication of our first novels. At some point along the way, we started kicking around the idea… Read More
In my new book, 8 Souls, the story of Chessie and David is set in Villisca, Iowa, which is a real-life place. In fact, it’s even a bit infamous, as the site of eight unsolved axe murders that took place in June 1912. While writing the story, I couldn’t help but compare what it’s like… Read More
Hello! We are the writing team of Storm Navarro and Jolie de la Cruz writing together as R.C. Alvarez. Recently, we have met up with a creative content strategist, Writing Bytes, to get a glimpse into what it takes to market your own book before and after its release date. She told us that one… Read More
One cold day in March I walked through the sunroom where my granddaughters often play. I stopped as the real world touched my writing world. There the girls were, wearing their hand-me-down ladies hats and gloves having tea and cookies. The tea cups might have been full of juice and the cookies were raided from… Read More
Learning a new skill can be intimidating. Change is hard. And diving into a new technical project can be daunting, especially when you know only a nominal amount about the medium. I also happen to be less than tech savvy. I once tried to update my website and crashed my email account. It was not… Read More
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read reviews that criticised historical romance for being inaccurate just because the characters engaged in pre-marital sexy times. But the Victorians were a lot sexier than people think. Our perception of them has been filtered by all those old photos of unsmiling grand dames and elder statesmen…. Read More
Red Zone, out April 22 I do everything with my smartphone. It’s my wallet, my stereo, my library, my mailbox, my photo album, my place to hang out with friends, my calendar and my office. I use it to turn on my heating when I’m on my way home, to make sure the house is… Read More
Do you have a bunch of girlfriends that mean the world to you? Or maybe you just have one, or two, friends that are your besties. Doesn’t matter how many friends you have, when you have a best friend they are worth their weight in gold. That’s what GIRLS WEEKEND AWAY series is all about…. Read More
Author Kylie Brant is on my auto-buy list, and personally I think she delights in terrifying her readers. But there was one endeavor that arguably terrified her. Please welcome the award-winning best-selling Kylie Brant to my blog. By: Kylie Brant I’ve long joked that my husband and I could never build a house together—the process would be… Read More
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