Plot Monkeys

First of all…HAPPY APRIL FOOL’S DAY! Hope nobody “gets” you too badly today.

Now, has this ever happened to you? You’re reading along in a great book, about a strong-willed, red-haired, green-eyed heroine and a powerfully built black-haired Lord. It’s the middle of a love scene, he’s kissing her sweet-scented skin, scraping his lips across the tender nape of her neck, and burying his face in her…blond curls?

Oops.

Mistakes. They happen. And believe me, I’ve had my share. It’s enough to make you just want to sink into the floor when you realize that despite your very best efforts and all your hard work, you let your work leave your hands without noticing some minor little thing that will seem MAJOR when you get the book and glance over it a few months later.

I mention this because I just realized I did something stupid in my July book, HEATED RUSH. There’s a scene where the hero rents a convertible to drive the heroine out to her folks’ house, and throughout the drive, the crated cat is lying on the back seat. Then, a few chapters later, when the heroine’s brother wants to ride with them, he can’t because…the car has no back seat! ARGH! I can’t believe I did it. Despite having a great editor and great copy & line editors, sometimes these things get through and the buck stops with me–I was at fault.

Sometimes this type of thing can be changed in time–this particular thing couldn’t. But something else pretty important about that book could.

I wrote this book several months after I’d done the “art fact sheet” for Harlequin. The art department uses that information to create the cover art. Well, obviously, between the time when I filled out that sheet and when I actually wrote the book, I had a very serious change in character description. Because while I originally wrote this:

But he doubted it. Judging by her soft yellow dress, the simple hairstyle–long and silky-straight, pulled back in a glittery clip–and her minimal jewelry, he suspected she was much more natural than that.

About a month ago, I got the cover art, and it looked like this (I left it huge so you can see what I’m talking about):

Uh…you see the problem? (Other than the chick’s flesh-belly colored upper thigh…ugh) Her hair isn’t exactly long and straight! Fortunately, I got this cover about one day before my final “galleys” were due. Meaning I had one day to race through them, find every mention of the heroine’s hair and change it to, oh, say, something like this;

But he doubted it. Judging by her soft, silky yellow dress, the simple hairstyle–short, straight, pulled back in a glittery headband–and her minimal jewelry, he suspected she was much more natural than that.

Whew! Bullet dodged. I mean, that one would be hard to overlook. Even harder than the hero’s short brownish hair when, in that same book, here’s what he looks like:

His lips were slightly pursed in a sexy, come-hither smile that no real man could pull off and still look so damned masculine. The sleekness of his thick, nearly jet black hair–long, silky and tied back in a ponytail–and the violet glint in those fathomless blue eyes simply had to be the product of a photographer with the latest Photoshop software.

Okay, this one I did NOT mess up in the art fact sheet. Sean Murphy’s had long, silky, jet-black hair since I first wrote about him in ONE WILD WEDDING NIGHT. (He was the gigolo in the middle story, Three-Way.)

But some things just don’t happen on covers. You’ll rarely see a red-haired hero, even if he has red hair in the book. Ditto the long hair like Sean’s. Or a beard. I guess publishers know what sells and what doesn’t, so even if you describe your characters that way, you’re not likely to see them on your cover.

I think readers are used to that, however, and are perhaps a little more forgiving about the hero’s hair. But the long-haired heroine having a bob? Good grief! I am SO glad I noticed and was able to fix it before I got a bunch of emails telling me about my big mistake. You think I wouldn’t have? Oh boy. Believe me, when we authors mess something up, we hear about it. As if we didn’t feel bad enough already, we get reminded of our mistake again and again.

It’s amazing how easy it is to do. With me, the mistakes always happen on revisions. When I go and change something and think I’ve got it fixed throughout the book, but invariably missed something. Like the car. I’d written everything, then realized the heroine couldn’t very well leave her cat at home unattended, so they’d have to take him. Only, I didn’t fix the backseat reference! In my book KILLING TIME–I originally had a character drop a gun she’d been holding. Later in the book, I changed it so the person took it…but forgot at one tiny little place to remove the mention of the hero hearing the gun drop to the desk! And in that same book, I had the hero taking the heroine’s shirt off twice during a love scene. I console myself by saying she was layering.

I’ve also made a deliberate boo-boo here and there. Those of you who’ve read my Santoris of Chicago books probably never even noticed that in BEHIND THE RED DOORS, the twins, Mark and Nick, are switched. Mark is the Marine, Nick is the cop. The thing is, DON’T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS came immediately after SHE’S GOT THE LOOK–with the hero named Nick! I didn’t want to write to Nicks in a row, it would seriously have messed with my head. And I didn’t want readers to read two Nicks in a row. So I fudged a teeny bit. And you know, that’s one thing I’ve never gotten letters on!

It happens to everyone–even the “biggies.” I once read a Susan Elizabeth Phillips book where a character’s sandwich changes from grilled chicken to tuna a few times in one scene. And even in movies & on TV. I was watching one of my fave shows, Reaper, the other night, and there was a scene where the young hero is standing outside someone’s door with his jacket flung over his shoulder. Then it’s down over his arm. Then it’s over his shoulder. Then it’s over his arm…rinse, repeat. It was just bad editing. And it happens to the best of us.

So what about you? Ever realized too late that you missed something and wish you could fix it? Or ever noticed a boo boo in a book you’ve been reading? Do tell! But only here…because believe me, I’m sure the author already knows about it!

I think we’ve talked on here about real plants vs. silk plants, and I confessed at that time that I have an utterly black thumb. I routinely kill anything that grows in pots, and it’s some kind of miracle that the beautiful plant Carly, Janelle & Julie sent me as a housewarming gift is still thriving in my kitchen.

So, naturally, I, the plant-killer, have decided to plant a vegetable garden.

Maybe it’s not as crazy as it sounds.

I need a hobby. In recent years, I’ve found myself having room for only two things in my life: writing and family. There hasn’t been much else, and now, with the deadlines and the pressures of reinventing my writing career, the writing seems to be in my head 24 hours a day. Considering I’m writing about a brutal serial killer, that’s not necessarily a place I want to be all the time.

I have heard other writers talk about how desperately they need other “mindless” hobbies to just take them out of the writing world for a while. I know Sue Kearney, who guest blogged here not too long ago, does belly dancing and ice skating, which is fabulous! I, unfortunately, have enough belly for four dancers, and couldn’t stand up on ice skates even before the nerve damage in my right leg made it utterly impossible.

Read back a few months…I’m about the most uncoordinated person on the planet. Or at least on this blogsite.

So I started thinking of what else I could do–something that would get me outside, allow me to just shut down and focus on breathing fresh air, enjoying the quiet, doing something positive. Sharing some quiet time with Bruce. And I thought of gardening.

My mother always loved working in her yard. I can still see her wiling away an entire spring afternoon pulling weeds and planting geraniums. She found a lot of peace and solace in it, which is exactly what I’m looking for.

Ergo, Miss Black Thumb is going whole-hog into the gardening thing. I think I might like it–I always enjoyed the little bit of flower planting I did in Florida, before I realized that the sun basically fried any flower that dared to show its head after May 1. The weather here is much more conducive, I have a beautiful big yard and the perfect spot for a big garden. Produce has gotten so darn expensive and preservative-filled, and I am already salivating at the thought of pulling fresh tomatoes, spinach and peppers off the vine for summer salads.

There’s one more big problem: I have no idea how the hell to grow a garden. I’ve been searching online, I researched at Lowes, and had a ball with Bruce and the girls picking out all the veggies we’ll grow. We sat at the kitchen table and started a bunch of different plants–fresh herbs! Yum! But then as we actually read the directions on the packet, we realized, umh, we have about 2 dozen broccoli seedlings. They take up a good couple of feet each. Ditto the squash. And the melons? Don’t even get me started. I think when we figure out just how much space we actually have in the ground, we’re going to be growing green beans, lettuce, zucchini and broccoli on my kitchen counter. lol!

I’m picturing this:

But I’m afraid I’m actually going to get this:

Aside from just the general “we don’t know what we’re doing” there are other issues. We’re clueless about how to keep the animals out. We bought the earth-friendly sprinkles and sprays, and organic fertilizers and bug killer. But does any of that really work? I’m actually thinking of chicken-wiring the whole thing because we live on the edge of the woods where plenty of critters live. Of course, the deer can just bend right over…sigh.

So, I guess I had a twofold reason for posting this today. First: Help! What do you know about gardening? Any tips, advice, do’s or don’ts you can offer?

And second: if you’re a writer, do you have any hobbies intended solely to pull you out of your fictional world and into the real one every day?

Congratulations to…
CASSIE B! Message # 62! You’re the winner of Leslie’s Jungle Madness Friday.

Write to me at: author@lesliekelly.com so I can get your prize out to you.

Now, here’s a few laughs for the upcoming Easter holiday…

Happy Spring!

Okay, it’s not here quite yet, but it’s almost here. My little tiger lily, tulip and daffodil bulbs have started venturing out into the sunshine and the little green sprouts are popping their heads up in my front garden!

Spring means it’s almost Easter…bunnies…baskets…eggs…CHOCOLATE!

So here’s what I’m offering to this week’s winner:

Yummy Hershey’s Kisses and cute Easter boxes. I’ll also throw in a backlist book for some steamy spring reading!

You know what to do…just comment and you’re eligible. Check back Sunday to see if you won so I can get your Easter gift ordered in time! (US Winners only, please!)
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Happy Anniversary to Barbara Vey and her awesome blog site, Beyond Her Book ! Please do me (Carly) a favor and stop by and comment, wishing her a happy anniversary. If you do, you’ll be eligible to win one of 75 prizes by amazing authors. I’m giving away the entire HOT ZONE trilogy and an ARC of HOT PROPERTY. Signed. So don’t walk, run and wish Barbara a Happy Anniversary!

I think I’ve told you all about my youngest daughter. She’s the 12 year old who wants to be the coroner or medical examiner. Or a surgeon. She just hasn’t decided whether she wants to cut into people who are dead or people who are alive.

Ahem. Yeah. We call her Dexter around here. It used to be because of Dexter’s Laboratory. Now? Huh–let’s just say I had to snort when I first watched an episode of Dexter–about the serial killer.

Not that my kid is in any way violent. She’s just incredibly cerebral. Likes figuring things out. The kind of kid who’s so smart she scares you Well, she certainly scares my father. When she was about 9, he looked at me and said, “I just don’t get that kid,” and I said, “Dad, it’s because she’s smarter than you are.” And he agreed.

Anyway, brains notwithstanding, she’s also got this incredibly cutting sense of humor. Very dry. She doesn’t let the zingers fly the way the middle daughter does, but she gets off a good one every now and then. Like last week, we were at a car dealership (yay! Bruce finally got rid of the p.o.s.!) And for some reason she and her sister were goofing off, one of them pretended to punch a wall, and Bruce said, “I did that once. Punch a wall. It hurts.”

And youngest, entirely deadpan, replies, “Oh. Because you had to live with Mom-Mom?”

(Those of you who have been around for my m-i-l stories will probably really understand why that slew me!)

Some of you might know that it’s RITA judging time. Every year the Romance Writers of America sponsors two contests, the Golden Heart for not-yet-published authors, and the RITA for published works. The RITA is the “Academy Award” of our industry, intending to honor the best of the best of the previous year, in several categories.

Anyway…this is a peer-judged contest. Authors volunteer to judge a “panel” of entries, with books mixed from various categories. This year I’m judging eight books, from three different categories. That’s as specific as I’m going to get…

I’ve found a couple of really good ones in the mix, which excites me. But I was mulling it over as I scored the books, trying to pinpoint why those particular books worked for me so well, when a couple of the others–just as competently written–didn’t.

I think for me it all has to come down to whether I am sucked into the story and drawn by the characters enough that the writing almost disappears. I don’t notice the bad (unless it’s really bad!) I don’t stop and admire the amazingly good. I’m one of those readers who just finds writing that distracts me from the story…distracting!

I think that’s why I’m not an Oprah book fan. If I’m pausing every paragraph to admire the way the words are put together, that means I’m not thoroughly engaged by the story. Which, in my opinion, means the book–no matter how well written–doesn’t entirely work for me.

So, I’m wondering, what is it that makes a book a winner for you? Do the beautiful words and images matter? Is a beautifully written book as important to you as one that tells a terrific story? Since I consider myself a storytell rather than a wordsmith, I really would like to know how the reader-on-the-street fells about this!

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The winner of Jane Porter’s Flirting with Forty is Comment #2 Heather Harper! Congrats, Heather! Email me at: carlyphillips @ mac.com (no spaces) with your snail mail info and I’ll send it to Jane!

Anybody who’s been around here for any time at all knows all four of us are dog people. We all have dogs, we all love our dogs. I guess there really are dog people and cat people, just as there are pie people and cake people. I’m a dog person…and a cake person. Bruce is a cat person…and a pie person. But we still manage to muddle along.

Dulcie–our new puppy–is growing by leaps and bounds, and Cassie hasn’t killed her yet. No, they’re not best friends. But they do get along okay for the most part.

Dulcie is still chewing everything in sight. She takes the slippers right off my feet, and no tiny little bit of paper, lint, fallen leaf or heaven forbid–food product–is safe if it hits the floor. She’s a shaggy little thing, adorably cute and fluffy, and sometimes I tell her I might as well sew her to my butt because every time I turn around, she’s shadowing me! Can’t tell you how many times I’ve tripped over her.

Potty training is good some days, not so good others. But she’s done really well with her crate training. Goes right into her little den at night and we don’t hear a peep out of her until morning. Once that peep comes, however, it’s accompanied by a bunch of yips and howls…she wants OUT and the moment she GETS out, she wants CASSIE! She charges to middle daughter’s room (where Cassie sleeps) and tries to get Cassie to come out and play. But, like me, Cassie is not a morning person. It’s then that we see the most disputes between them.

Cassie’s learned a few tricks to get rid of the pest when she’s had enough. She can jump up onto the couch. Up until about a week ago, Dulcie could not. So there were many “I got your toy, nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah” moments when the six-year-old would dangle something over the side, and jerk her head back as Dulcie bounced like a Mexican jumping bean, trying to take it back.

Now that Dulcie’s made it up a few time, Cassie doesn’t try this so often.

Up until a few days ago, Dulcie couldn’t handle the stairs, so when Cassie wanted a break, she’d take off up to the girls’ rooms, leaving the puppy crying at the bottom of the staircase.

Now Dulcie can climb up. But she can’t make it down…only up.

Cassie has found a way around this problem too, however. She either lures Dulcie upstairs, then races back down, abandoning her crying at the top. Or else she simply heads for the basement steps and goes down to hang out in the rec room. Either way…no Dulcie. Is this dog smart, or what?

Heaven help her when Dulcie learns to climb down!

Just for laughs, I thought we could try one of those fun quizzes. This one is called “What Common Breed of Dog Are You?”. Go take it and let us know what you were…and laugh at some of the questions. Why do I see Julie choosing “world domination” and “Stand my ground and intimidate the problem.. They WILL back down.. oh yes.”

PS: I was a Lab. Nice dogs. But, uh, I definitely don’t think that description fits me to a T. (It’s better than what I was the first time, though…I HATE Bulldogs…lolololol!)

What Common Breed of Dog Are You?

Labrador
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We’re so excited to have Kensington Brava author Helenkay Dimon in the jungle today!

Helenkay (like our own Carly) is a former attorney who traded power suits and court cases for pajamas and romance writing. Her first sale, to Kensington editor Kate Duffy, was a novella which appeared in the Brava collection WHEN GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO BAD BOYS.

It was followed by a novella collection of her own, called VIVA LAS BAD BOYS, which was where I first read her. I was immediately hooked, as Helenkay’s books are funny, super-sexy and fast-paced, with fabulous dialogue. As a reader, there’s nothing I appreciate more than being simply charmed by every word, and that’s what Helenkay’s books do.

Her newest release RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW, which will be in stores THIS WEEK (hint hint) is a Romantic Times Magazine 4 1/2 Top Pick. “Dimon combines fresh, solid character voices reminiscent of chick lit with love scenes that sizzle with the passion and intensity of any hot erotica. The result is one comical page-turner.”

Just FYI…Helenkay is also a strong voice in the romance writing industry, with an insightful blog and a common sense presence in the sometimes insane world of romancelandia. Be sure to check out her website if you get a chance! www.helenkaydimon.com

Please join us in giving a big jungle welcome to Helenkay Dimon! (Who will be coming around to answer questions today…so don’t be shy.)

Recycling, Reusing and Any Other R You Can Think Of

Before I sold my first book, I would hear comments in workshops or at conferences that seemed to contradict each other. To be honest, I heard about a hundred comments that contradicted each other. The specific contradiction I’m talking about now is one you get when you have a manuscript rejected. This is the move on and write something else advice versus the you may be able to use this somewhere else at some other time advice. I can honestly say I’ve followed…both. That sounds like one more contradiction.

Not so fast.

There are a few authors out there who wrote their first book and sold it. We hate them. (Just kidding) For the rest of us, we wrote a manuscript (or three or seven), lived through a round(s) of rejections and eventually sold something else. Even after that first sale, we have ideas that meet with rejection. We hate that (and I’m not kidding this time). The question then is: when do you move on from a project and how the heck do you know you should.

The Move On And Write Something Else advice

This is, quite possibly, the worst advice to hear. This explains why so few people follow it when they get it. The ego, emotion and love associated with writing a manuscript or coming up with an idea makes letting go tough. That doesn’t mean you should ignore the advice. There are obvious times to let go and move:

-When your category romance is 700 pages long and you refuse to cut a word.
-When your single title idea is such a mess that your heroine’s name changed twice during the span of the manuscript (and, yes, I have written this book).
-When you have entered every contest with the same manuscript for two years.
-When your love for one book or idea has made it so that you can’t come up with another or think you can’t write something else.
- When it’s been rejected everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
-When you try to explain the plot to someone and end up saying something along the lines of, “well, you just have to read it because it’s too hard to explain.”

Come on. Some of those look familiar, don’t they?

The You May Be Able To Use This Somewhere Else At Some Other Time advice

But, and here’s the good news, there are projects that can be revived (revised, reused – pick your “r” word). Now, I will admit that I heard this from my now-editor Kate Duffy before she was my editor. I thought she was…well, lying. Really, I thought she was being nice. I now know better. She doesn’t get paid to be nice. What she was really saying was that the idea I had was the wrong project or the wrong moment or not written well enough or not written as it should have been written.

For example, my release last year, YOUR MOUTH DRIVES ME CRAZY (Brava July ‘07), a romance set in Kauai, Hawaii, was the second single title I ever tried to write (the first was the one with the problematic heroine name, a secret baby, a mystery and possibly a cowboy who was once an alien…I’ve blocked most of it). I pitched the Hawaii single title romance idea for the first time to my then-not-yet-editor and she said it was too dark, the attraction was too instantaneous and it wasn’t the right place to start my career. She told me to put it away and we’d revisit it later. I then sold four novellas to her, but I never forgot the “we’ll revisit it later” part.

When it came time to try to write my first published single title for my now-editor, I dragged out that old Hawaii romance idea. After two years of not looking at it, what I once thought was brilliant was obviously not. Rather than go with that original Hawaii romance idea, I came up with a different one and YOUR MOUTH DRIVES ME CRAZY was born. But that original idea did not die. I revisited it one more time late last year. I re-wrote, revised, restructured and re-everything until it was the right Hawaii romance at the right time. That single title will be out in April 2009.

Is There A Point To This?

Believe it or not, yes. Just think about all of those folks who wanted to write paranormal romance for all those years and were told the market was not there. They had an idea or a book at the wrong time or written in the wrong way, but they had something worth nurturing and keeping alive for a later time. Sure, some of those were books that were never meant to happen and needed to be put to the side forever (category #1). Others were books that needed to find a time, a place, a different voice or something that only a bit of time could help discover (Category #2).

The reality is that not all manuscripts or ideas are viable. Being able to move on is the key, but not all have to be put aside forever. Some ideas need to find their time and, yes, get a complete overhaul before they work. It all comes down to the same thing: read, write, revise and start again. Just remember that starting again doesn’t always mean from scratch.

We have often talked about what we’re reading now here at Plotmonkeys. But I wanted to talk today about what we were reading then. As in, at the very beginning of our romance reading lives. I’d really like to know the name of “the book” or books that started you down the path of romance reading heaven. And maybe to talk about what qualities in those books made you a romance reading fan for life.

I’ll start.

I began reading romance novels at the age of 12. Like a lot of readers, I started with Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame And The Flower.

One of my sisters had brought it home, I found it, was told I couldn’t read it, so I promptly hid in the closet with a flashlight. All would have been fine if I hadn’t been stupid enough to ask my sister what a “manhood” was.

My love affair with romance novels continued throughout my teen years. I watched for every Woodiwiss, and will never forget the thrill of seeing a TV commercial for her third book, Shanna. I kid you not, I just sat there goggle-eyed, never having seen (or never remembering) a commercial for a book, and that it was one of “those” books that my mother was forever telling me I should quit reading, well, I felt validated!

I am probably the exception to the Woodiwiss rule in that I really didn’t like Shanna that much. She was such a witch. I had really loved The Wolf And The Dove–Aislinn was such a strong heroine, but strong without descending into shrewishness, like Shanna did.

Then came Ashes In The Wind (my editor Brenda Chin’s favorite of the Woodiwiss books) and I was in love again. Here was a feisty heroine who was every bit as strong as the hero, a rich backdrop, a noble but wounded hero and an entire cast I truly cared about.

Then came A Rose In Winter which took my breath away–the ultimate beauty and the beast story. I still love Christopher Seton and it is that book which has held up the best for me. I can reread Rose In Winter and still get that “ahh!” feeling that I had the first time I read it, (even though I mentally count the number of doors called “portals” and the number of eyes and breasts called “orbs.”)

I’ll stop there with Woodiwiss. I never enjoyed another of her books. Can’t say why, I honestly don’t know. But her first five were simply beyond compare for me at that time.

There was another popular author during that period of early Avon supremacy, who didn’t achieve Woodiwiss’s stature or success, but whose books I came to love even more. Laurie McBain’s books absolutely floored me.
I discovered her with Devil’s Desire, but she didn’t really come into her own until her second book, Moonstruck Madness (another of Brenda’s faves! She was a real tomboy and loved seeing the heroine dressing up as a boy, kicking butt and taking names!)

For me, I loved McBain because she always wrung every emotion she could possibly get out of me until I was utterly dry. I would find myself swept away by the romance, admiring the strong heroines, loving the to-die-for heroes, and yet, at some point, sobbing my face off because she’d gotten me into such an emotional state and had then yanked the rug out by killing off some character I’d fallen madly in love with.

In Tears Of Gold, it was the heroine, Mara’s, rascally, gold-hungry brother Brendan.

In Wild Bells To The Wild Sky (which I just reread about a month ago!) it was the heroine’s parents, whose romance takes up the first quarter of the book. And in this book, the hero’s name is (wait for it… ) Valentine Whitelaw. Could you just die? He was a privateer, with jet black hair and an earring, and oh, my God, he was divine!

In When The Splendor Falls…well, just about everybody dies (it was a Civil War book) but I especially mourned the heroine’s brother-in-law, who came home from the war to find his beautiful young wife dead, and himself the parent of an infant. And then he dies too! Any other author would have him finding another HEA or dedicating his life to being a good father, or whatever, but McBain didn’t take the easy way out, and even while I was cursing her for it, I knew it couldn’t have happened any other way.

Books just don’t grab me like that anymore. Those early romances where the tragedy and the joy were completely intertwined, where the writing was rich and the characters so incredibly vivid literally swept me away. Made me ignore homework, housework, all the stuff I was supposed to be doing, stay up until four a.m., just keep turning those pages. That very rarely happens to me with any book now. And yet, when I reread Wild Bells To The Wild Sky, that is exactly what happened all over again.

Can I confess: I was a dumpster diver during that period. I worked at a shoe store in a mall when I was 16, and right next door was a Walden Books. Our dumpster was next to theirs in the back of the building. And oh, my God, when I went out there one day and saw it entirely FULL of books with the covers torn off, I wanted to scream at the sky, “Oh, the humanity!”

I, uh, shoved aside the empty pizza boxes, the slimy Hardee’s cups, the half-eaten Dairy Queen sundaes, and…shopped. Came home with a trunkload of books (knowing nothing, at that point, about covers being returned for credit and those books reported as destroyed.) Eventually, since they had no covers, I’m quite sure I did toss them. But I read every single one first. The author might not have gotten the royalties, but a whole bunch of them gained a new voracious reader.

Believe it or not, this was how I discovered another of my early faves: Cynthia Wright. She wrote really good colonial romances. One of my faves was a Scarlet Pimpernel homage Surrender The Stars (much like Jude Devereux’s much later title, The Raider). The hero is in disguise as a dandy/fop and is trying to win the heroine that way, while secretly seducing her as his real-life persona. My favorite Wright was called You And No Other, and it was a fabulous book set in the French court of Francois II. (I think!) Couldn’t find either of those covers, unfortunately.

There are a few other titles that stand out for me.

The House of Scorpio by Pat Wallace. I LOVED this book. It was set in a world that was divided by astrological signs. Sun people lived in the desert and water people lived in rainy climates. There were six complete romances in the book, about six sisters separated at birth. Each one had a very Victoria Holt “gothic” feel, despite the astrological stuff. I have been watching for that book for years…whenever it shows up online, it’s like fifty bucks or something. Maybe someday I’ll go ahead and bite the bullet for it, we’ll see.

Angel In Scarlet by Jennifer Wilde. I wasn’t a huge Wilde fan, especially with books like Love’s Tender Fury, where the heroine ended up with the JERK hero instead of the wonderful secondary love interest, who the hero kills in a duel. But Angel In Scarlet was a lot of fun. Wilde’s heroines were tarts and indentured servants. They had affairs (that shocked me when I first read one–the heroine sleeping with someone other than the hero? Yow!) And this one, in particular, had the heroine marrying someone other than the hero, and they’re both completely ostracized from society for it. (She’s an actress, he’s a Lord.) He throws a ball to introduce his new bride and NOBODY comes. But he doesn’t care. He takes her into his arms and dances her around the ballroom for the entire night to their own private orchestra. It was a lovely scene, and again, I wish he had been the hero…but I didn’t hate the actual final hero in this one as much as I did with Love’s Tender Fury.

Okay, I’ve gone on and on here. I tend to get carried away when reminiscing about this stuff. I could talk about Devreaux’s Velvet series or Lindsay’s Mallory’s (her book Man Of My Dreams was my favorite, where the Duke was disguised as the stable boy… ) or Garwood or Judith McNaught…well, you get the point.

But now I want to hear from you! Where’d you get your start? What books do you really remember? Any you re-read to this day…and how have they held up?

And here’s a toast to the late Kathleen Woodiwiss, who started it all. I genuinely thank the woman to introducing me to what has been one of my greatest pleasures, personally and professionally: romance fiction.

I read a headline a few weeks ago about a father who was mortified that his teenage daughter had seen that he had a picture of Britney Spears on his cell phone. (Personally, if I was a teenage girl and my father had a picture of Britney Spears on his cell phone, I’d be more mortified about his taste than anything else. But I digress.)

That headline started me thinking, and made me realize something: I like cute boys…does that mean I’m a dirty old lady?

Now, before the internet explodes with the news, let me clarify: I like cute young stars…not young men on the street. Just as Bruce has his little Selma Hayek/Scarlett Johanssen list, I had my own Hugh Jackman/David Duchovny/George Clooney one.

But lately, I realized my “list” guys are getting too old for me. (hee hee)

While I should, given my age, be drooling over guys like Mel Gibson (been there, done that, he lost me when he went crazy) or Harrison Ford (he was such a jerk to his wife) or good old George (eh, not doing it for me anymore) in truth, I prefer cuties like the two guys who star on the CW’s show SUPERNATURAL,

Jared Padalecki

And especially Jensen Ackles.

(Middle daughter got the season 2 DVD for Christmas and we just finished racing through it. That Dean–what a doll. And what fabulous dialogue!)

Let’s face it, I was a Tiger Beat teen. And once you’ve had Robbie Benson, Leif Garret and Sean Cassidy on your walls…well, you never lose your eye for young heartthrobs.

So here’s a little boy-toy eye candy for us all. Or, at least for those of us who are 1965’ers or older. You youngsters can legitimately drool all you want. The rest of us will merely amuse ourselves…Feel free to contribute to the list. Who’s your favorite boy-toy eye candy?

Josh Duhamel…(loved him as Leo in AMC, and in Vegas he’s just dreamy):

Jake Gyllenhal (oh, those eyes… )

Jonathan Rhys Meyers (have you seen The Tudors? He makes men in tights look HOT.)

Josh Harnett…more cute than hot.

Tobey Maguire…another one more cute than hot. But I love him as super-geek turned superhero Spiderman.

PS: I had actually started writing this blog several weeks ago, but never finished it. I had downloaded some of the pics, including this one…it makes me very sad to post it:

Heath Ledger