Sharon Buchbinder's Blog - Posts Tagged "romance"

Thank you for dropping in to read my inaugural Snap, Crackle and Popping Blog. I hope you’ll make this a regular stop on your Tuesday travels into in cyberspace and engage in banter about books and writing. Today I will answer the oft-repeated question: “Sharon, why do you write about werewolves, Jinn (genies) and other weird things that go bump in the night?” This is analogous to asking mountain climbers why Mount Everest calls their name. My response: “Because they’re here, there and everywhere.”

Paranormal events have played a role in my life since childhood. I have always accepted this alternate reality that many others do not experience or recognize. Their disbelief doesn’t dismiss my psychic experiences: dreams that come true, that I think of someone–and that person calls, and that I knew my sister was pregnant before she did...Read more at http://sharonbuchbinder.com/blog/2010...

Once upon a time, before the Internet, the only pirates we romance writers worried about were the handsome, dashing ones in movies and novels. Fast forward a few decades and not only do we have pirates of the Caribbean (for real!) but also pirates of our copyrighted works. The first time it happened to me with Kiss of the Silver Wolf, it took my breath away. An experienced college professor, I was used to students cutting and pasting my work and the works of others into research papers and claiming it as their own. Stunningly, these sites don’t even pretend that it’s their work. They post entire e-books and scanned print books online with the authors’ names to attract more customers. To read more go to http://sharonbuchbinder.com/blog/2011...

This week, in honor of Deaf History Month, March 13-April 15, 2011, I am posting about my grandmother and the great influence she had on my life. My grandmother, as you will see, was a very special person. I purposely included a deaf character in my forthcoming book, Desire and Deception, who personifies the strength and resilience of my grandmother.

In 1954, at the age of three years old, my mother put me on a plane in Washington, D.C., and sent me to Connecticut to live with my deaf, non-speaking grandmother, my aunt, uncle, cousin, two Chihuahuas, and a parakeet. At night, I would cry because I missed my family. As I sobbed, my grandmother would take me in her arms and hug me, making grunting noises. I’d fall asleep to her wordless lullaby of love, wondering if I’d ever see my family again, not knowing that my parents were divorcing.

A year after being shipped north, I was reunited with my family. After a year, we moved out of my aunt’s basement and into government subsidized housing. Now when we visited my aunt’s house, I had to share my grandmother with my siblings. On birthdays and graduations, she created scavenger hunts for us, leaving a trail of written clues. She must have spent hours planning the hints, writing them out in her beautiful calligraphy, and placing them throughout the house. To read more go to: http://sharonbuchbinder.com/blog/2011...

In 2004, three years after passing the half-century mark, I took stock of my life and realized that I had abandoned my first love, writing fiction. With a grown son, a teaching job, and the summer beckoning me, I told my husband that I was going to Florida for a month to write. Dumbfounded, he nodded acceptance—then realized that meant he would be alone in Maryland for an entire month. After negotiations, we agreed on a schedule that would enable him to be with me for fifteen out of the thirty days I would be away. Not the life of a writing recluse, but the space I needed to begin.

My sister and friends in Florida greeted me with open arms—and an open bar. At five in the evening, on the third day of my feverish clacking away at the keyboard, I read them my first chapter. They laughed, they clapped, they asked for more. They, along with my patient husband, became my first critique group. At this point in my new adventure, I needed the kind and gentle reinforcement of family and friends to keep me away from the whirling eddies of self-doubt and the undertow of my internal editor screaming “YOU SUCK!” At the end of the month, I returned to Maryland, the start of a new semester and the routine of the day job. The cheering section from Florida continued to send me emails asking for chapters, giving me the encouragement to continue to write. I began an email list with my founding “members,” then added others as more of our friends began to read my work. After a year, I completed the first draft of my novel, which was subsequently rejected by eighty-two agents and several publishers. The only agents and publishers interested in my “baby” were ones who were denounced in large red print on numerous websites.
To read more go to http://sharonbuchbinder.com/blog/2011...

I am delighted to have my Twitter and Goodreads friend, Sandy Wolters, with me today to talk about her latest book, A BROTHER’S LOVE. Author of three books, Sandy has been an avid reader for years. To her husband’s dismay, she has bookshelves full of books, rooms full of books, boxes full of books. Her cars have books in them. About two years ago, her husband gave her the dream gift, a Kindle. It was love at first sight and her first foray into the world of ebooks. While she still has books everywhere, she no longer takes ten or twelve books with her when she goes on vacation. The only thing she needs is her Kindle. It never leaves her purse. In her life prior to becoming an author, she was a Legal Assistant/Office Manager for a wonderful local estate planning attorney (no criminals that she knows of!) Sandy and her husband, Michael, raised two beautiful, strong women so that’s who she writes about. The women in her books are strong individuals that have moments of weakness and frailty to work through.

Sandy has generously agreed to provide a free e-copy of A BROTHER’S LOVE for one reader. All you have to do is comment or ask a question at the end of the interview to be entered to win. To whet your appetite, check out her book trailer for A BROTHER’S LOVE at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lycg00...

Sharon Buchbinder
www.sharonbuchbinder.com/blog
Fireworks for the Mind--Surprising and Sizzling!

THE GIRL MOST LIKELY. Author of 7 books, Jana has been creating stories in her head all of her life–sometimes about real people but more often about people she made up. It wasn’t until she was in her thirties that she began to put her stories down on paper. She’s been at it for more than fifteen years, although she’s just recently become published in novel length fiction. Jana says, “Just think of me as the poster child for perseverance!”

She lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada with her husband Warren, two university age daughters, and a highly spoiled Pug/Terrier cross named Lou. Jana also grows Lupins, Icelandic poppies and grapes in a tough environment, so it’s no surprise she has succeeded in writing in a competitive publishing world. Jana has generously agreed to provide a free e-copy of THE GIRL MOST LIKELY for one reader. All you have to do is comment or ask a question at the end of this interview to be entered to win.

To read more go to http://bit.ly/sJuMOc

I am delighted to have my chapter mate and fellow Connecticut Yankee (we just found out we grew up one town apart from each other!) from the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Chapter of Romance Writers of America, CASEY WYATT, with me today to talk about her new release, MYSTIC INK. Employed by a large national company by day, Casey Wyatt is author of paranormal romance and urban fantasy novels by night. She’s a member of the RWA (PRO), CT RWA, and the FF&P chapter of the RWA.

She is happily married, has two teenage sons and wrangles a bunch of adorable pets, in addition to her other jobs. Casey has generously agreed to provide a free e-copy of MYSTIC INK for one commenter. All you have to do is comment or ask a question at the end of the interview to be entered to win.

To read more, go to http://bit.ly/zSG8kx

KILLER KISSES is alive and available on Amazon Kindle http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0080LR1XA

This professionally edited, full novel sized collection of short stories and novellas contains *kisses* that range from contemporary, short and chaste to long, paranormal and spicy.

Here's a sneak preview of each kiss:

In A Peck on the Cheek: Hurricane Jason, a female private investigator searches for a two-timing husband, but lands in an hurricane shelter. Does she get her man?

In Cat Nips: Catastrophe, a crazy cat lady is evicted by her drunken landlord and the lives of her cats are at stake. Will she and her rescues wind up on the street? Or will a secret admirer find a better home for everyone?

In Hot Lips: Lake Placid Cure, a woman finds her husband in a compromising position--again. Looking to recover her dignity, she sets out for a medi-spa, encounters a murder mystery and discovers that miracles still happen in Lake Placid.

In French Kiss: Pigmalion, a speech pathology graduate student needs one more subject for her research project to graduate. She runs into a hot guy with a heavy accent and tries to recruit him into her study. Will she teach him the language of love?

In Sizzling Smooch: Bonded for Life, a Mexican artist runs for her life to hide in the little town where she graduated from high school. She's convinced no one will find her there. But a boy with a high school crush on her grew up to be a hunky cop--and he has her in his cross hairs.

In Delectable and Delicious: An Inn Decent Proposal, a chef and a hotelier join forces at a foreclosure auction on an old inn and outbid a small time hood. The thug doesn't like being on the losing end of the deal. Things heat up outside and in the bedroom. Can the couple make a go of it? Or will the hood destroy their dream?

In Release Your Inner Wild Women: Kiss of the Silver Wolf, a young woman searches for the truth about her brother's debilitating disease. An intriguing man with silver hair and a penchant for long night runs insists she's his life mate. How does this sexy man figure into her family secrets?

I am delighted to have SHERRI CHIANTI with me today to talk about her release, UNVEILED, a Renaissance time travel romance. A prolific traveler and writer, Sherri often combines the two. Believing characters grow the most when they’re put in new surroundings, she crafts romance, time travel, and women’s fiction in diverse locales. Sherri has been to the Caribbean, Europe, and all corners of the U.S. Despite her wanderlust, she also enjoys being a homebody in her own back yard. Sherri has generously agreed to provide a free e-copy of UNVEILED for one commenter. All you have to do is comment or ask a question at the end of the interview to be entered to win.

To read more, go to http://bit.ly/KQ5zra

No one is going to argue the point. Women have made great headway in the last fifty years – emerging from the kitchen to the boardroom, and beyond. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report women now account for 47% of the total workforce. Having grown up in a household where my expectations as a female were to marry and procreate – period – I think this is a fantastic occurrence. Granted, most of those jobs are in occupations traditionally thought of as “Women’s jobs” such as teaching, social work and accounting (apparently we’re good at numbers), and even in those jobs, women receive less pay than men doing the same work.

Yes, we’ve come a long way, but we aren’t finished yet.

I vividly remember my mother telling me, “I don’t know why you want to go to college.” This was said in the car on the way to register for my first semester of college. I had a boyfriend at the time, and that, in my mother’s mind, meant I was headed to the altar and the maternity room shortly thereafter. It’s the way she was raised. It’s the way most of my close relatives were raised. By this time, my closest cousin was indeed married and had a child. Becoming a wife and mother at eighteen was not something I had any interest in, or any aptitude for.

Roz has a great aptitude for writing hot novels! To read the rest of her interview and a steamy excerpt, go to http://bit.ly/JKxv4x