SquawkRadio

Oh no! Somehow Connie Brockway found out about my earlier Hollywood aspirations and has gotten hold of incriminating video footage of me and Eloisa James and is threatening to send it to our editors to prove we’re spending too much time playing Solitaire on the computer and not enough time writing our books! When I filmed my segment, my cat Buffy the Mouse Slayer promised me it would remain private-our little secret. But apparently the greedy creature was won over by promises of kibble and catnip-laced mouse toys. I feel so used! Just like Pam Anderson!

You can check out Connie’s diabolical efforts at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAszx2Ge9co

(And watch for the part where Buffy tries to “direct” me!)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go hide my tiara before my editor calls!

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I’ve written another historical romance, a regency romance that blends old school and new, and I’m pleased. Self-satisifed. And I’ve been spoiled with good reviews. Spoiled.

Hm.

Now, I have been accused of spoiling my daughter, my dogs, my husband (I can hear him laughing hysterically from the next room) and myself.  To which I say “pfffffbt.” Water...under...bridge.  It’s too late for them (and me); they (and I) are done deals. Spoiled or not, we’re pretty well set in stone. Not so, the heroine of THE GOLDEN SEASON.

My heroine’s name is Lady Lydia Eastlake and she likes nice things.

She likes good wine, good music, good clothes and good company and, being incredibly rich, she has the means to avail herself of all of these and she does so all the freaking time. Added to which she is gorgeous.

Does this make her spoiled? I guess it depends on what you mean by spoiled. I’ve always defined spoiled as “an ongoing expectation of unearned benefits that, once in possession of, are treated indifferently.” And by my definition, the answer is a resounding no. Because Lydia never treats anything or anyone cavalierly.

It is her most attractive and laudable feature: she knows the value of a thing, an experience and a relationship.  Sure, she leads a very privileged life.  But, be honest, who wouldn’t want it? She’s a regency rock star, celebrated, copied, admired.
And if you’re living a life like that, I imagine you would hate the idea of giving it up, and fight to keep it, especially if you’d had never known anything else.

Which is exactly how Lydia reacts when she loses all her money. She fights to keep her place in society, her friends, her lifestyle, her ability to chose her own course.

I wrote Lydia Eastlake because I was tired, tired, tired, of worthy young heroines who only fight for truth, justice and the kind treatment of small animals. I wanted to write a character I understood. One who was honest and real. One who wasn’t too dense to realize she was gorgeous or the effect her looks had on people and who enjoyed that. One didn’t go apologizing for liking nice things. But one still with things to learn who would be forced to choose between what she knows and what she hopes to know.

I hope you get a chance to read THE GOLDEN SEASON and I hope you like Lydia as much as I do. If so, drop me a note and let me know. I love being spoiled....

I could spend hours sharing all of my passionate arguments on the benefits of both reading and writing romance.  I could quote more market statistics.  I could quote psychologists.  I could quote Jayne Ann Krentz and remind you of the positive, life-affirming values inherent in all romances:  the celebration of female power, courage, intelligence, and gentleness; the inversion of the power structure of a patriarchal society; the psychological benefits of spending time with authors who have a positive world view.

But to be honest I’m a little sick of defending “romance” as a genre to people too obsessed with its sexual content to attempt to understand its emotional content. So if any of you are ever leered at, sneered at, or otherwise degraded for writing or reading romance, simply blink and gently say (really quickly), “What the romance novel is really all about is the archetypal human struggle of integrating the masculine and feminine aspects of our psyches.” I can promise you that nothing will shut them up faster. 

People often ask me why I write romance.  I write romance because the ever expanding boundaries of the genre allow me to express my own heartfelt beliefs in optimism, faith, honor, chivalry and the timeless power of love to provoke a happy ending.  In a society gutted by cynicism, we have found the courage to stand up and proclaim that hope isn’t corny, love isn’t an antiquated fantasy, and dreams can come true for women still willing to strive for them.

Probably the most subversive thing we dare to do is to make the woman the hero of her own story.  And to realize exactly how subversive that is, I want each of you to honestly ask yourselves if the marvelous J.K. Rowling would have been such an international success if her first book had been titled, HARRIET POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE.  Traditionally, in our mainstream patriarchal society, it’s been the male character who is allowed to go on all the thrilling physical and emotional quests.  Oh, he might have a female sidekick like the delightful Hermione Granger in HARRY POTTER, but she is rarely allowed to overstep her role as confidante and facilitator of his self-discovery.  In a romance, the heroine acts as narrator of her own story as well as driving the various plotlines that fuel that story. 

Our heroines don’t just “stand by their men”, they “stand up to them.” And guess what—their men love it!  We celebrate both a woman’s softness and her strength and introduce her to a man capable of recognizing the value of both.  Is it any wonder that both she and our readers fall in love with him? 

I write romance because a young woman in Portugal named Lourdes Goulart was praying that my next book would come out before the cancer that was ravaging her body claimed her life.  Even though chemotherapy had weakened her eyesight to the point of blindness, she sent me a beautiful and painstaking cross-stitch she’d done of a windmill she could see through the window from her bed.  Six months ago, I received word from her sister, Rosa, that Lourdes had died.  She started my new book the day before she entered the hospital for the last time, but didn’t want to read past the first page for fear of being interrupted. 

I write romance because of a call I recently received from a friend who attended nursing school with me.  She’d just undergone a total hysterectomy.  She described how depressed and emotionally empty she’d felt after the surgery and its numerous complications.  She told me that reading my latest book pulled her out of her depression and even restored the sexual desire for her husband that she had feared she would never feel again. 

I write romance because of an e-mail I recently received from a 54-year old incest survivor.  Instead of blaming her father for the terrible thing he had done to her, she had always blamed her mother for letting him do it.  Because my hero in A KISS TO REMEMBER found the grace in his soul to forgive his mother for a similar act, this woman decided, after nursing her bitterness for 50 years, to forgive her mother before she passed away from Alzheimer’s Disease. 

I’d like to share one more brief story with you:

They met in 1957 when he was twenty-two and she was eighteen.  He was a skinny, handsome G.I. with a motorcycle and a devilish twinkle in his eye.  She was his sister’s best friend.  She was beautiful, smart, and funny.  He was in love. 

He went driving along the river that dark, rainy night at nearly a hundred miles an hour--a 26 year old soldier in a foreign country with a brand new baby and a wife facing a lifetime of torturous illness and uncertainty.  He had a choice to make.  He could shuffle his baby off to be raised by relatives and abandon his wife to the care of a German mental institution.  He could drive into that river and let all of his decisions be made for him.  Or he could choose to live and fight for his family.

My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year.  Because my dad meant it when he said, “for better or worse; in sickness and in health,” I enjoyed a relatively stable, happy childhood and my mom’s hospitalizations were kept to a minimum.  My father’s love is as unwavering and unconditional today as it was fifty-one years ago.  Although my mother is now suffering from a rare and terminal brain disorder that has resulted in severe dementia, when my father visits her in the nursing home every other day, he still sees that beautiful, brilliant girl who won his heart all those years ago. 

So when people ask me, “Why do you write romance?”, I can only reply, “How could I not?”

Please visit me today over at http://www.facebook.com/teresamedeirosfanpage and tell me why you love to read romance!

http://www.teresamedeiros.com
You can follow Teresa on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/teresamedeiros and join her Facebook Page at: http://www.facebook.com/teresamedeirosfanpage

In 2005, we moved into our new house, and to celebrate, we got this Christmas tree. It was too tall for our great room ... and the ceiling’s 16’ 8”. Listen, don’t laugh, our friends Donna and Monty gave it to us, so it was free and we didn’t have to chop it down. Scott cut a foot off the bottom and a foot and a half off the top. We carried it in. (Our manly neighbor was conveniently not home to help, so I got elected to carry the “light” end. My contribution consisted mostly of saying, “Wait! I’m standing on a branch!")

When we stood it up, the tree hit the ceiling. So Scott got the loppers, stood on the ladder and cut off another foot and a half. Some might say it smelled like a Xmas tree in here. Actually, it smelled like the whole damned forest. We had to buy garlands, bulbs and lights (ya think?), and we risked our lives to decorate the tree by using extendo-pinchers and really tall ladders. But everyone in the family thoroughly enjoyed the tree.

So … a few days after Christmas, we invited Donna and Monty to dine with us, drink with us, and admire our gorgeous tree — and that makes the evening’s events so much more appropriate.

We were all in the great room after dinner, chatting and relaxing. Donna and I sat on the couch, Monty sat on a chair facing us, Scott was on the other couch, also facing us. The tree was off to our right. And right in the middle of the conversation, Monty who is a very erudite, articulate, learned man, suddenly shouted (and I’m quoting him exactly), “Ptrmmble! Shxzmnrt! Argk!”

Later he said he couldn’t find the right words. Actually, the appropriate phrase would have been, “Timber!”

Because the tree fell on us.

It fell in slow motion (the plastic base cracked and the half-inch metal screws in the trunk bent) so Donna and I were able to scramble out from underneath, laughing wildly. (That’s Donna holding the coffee cup and Monte holding the tree while Scott gets a rope.) The guys righted it, tied the trunk to the stair railing and we all sat down and laughed some more. And every Christmas should have a miracle — only one ornament broke!

This year, of course, we’re going to be a lot wiser about our tree. No more of the trees that touch the ceiling. We’ve learned our lesson … yeah. Right.

No matter what holiday you celebrate, I hope you have a wonderful time with family and friends and food, and may your tree always remain erect.

Warmly,
Christina Dodd
http://www.christinadodd.com

PEOPLE magazine recently named Johnny Depp the Sexiest Man Alive. What better time to choose the SEXIEST MAN DEAD?  (And no--Edward Cullen does NOT qualify this time!) Let’s forget those hot guys with their minty fresh breath and pesky pulses for a little while and harken back to days (and men) gone by.  I’m posting a few of my favorites to inspire you.  (And let me say right off the bat before anyone forgets--SEAN CONNERY IS STILL ALIVE!!!)

Has there ever been a more swoon-worthy moment in cinematic history than the one where Scarlett O’Hara looked down that long, sweeping staircase to find Rhett Butler grinning up at her?  Those sparkling eyes and that devilish grin can still take my breath away.  Clark Gable could carry me up the stairs any day!  (Or night!)

I’ve already gone on record as saying that the phone scene between Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE is the hottest love scene in history.  There are no rumpled bedsheets.  There are no naked, straining bodies.  There’s simply George Bailey and Mary Hatch sharing a phone in her mother’s living room.  An overtly hostile George is torn between his dream of escaping his hometown while there’s still time and his desperate desire for young Mary.  I don’t have to tell you which one wins and in that moment when he drops the phone and grabs Mary, the chemistry between them is so sizzling it may very well melt your heart and your DVD player.  There’s just something about a “nice guy” who seems so laid back but has such smoldering reserves of passion that I’ve always found irresistible. 

As you can probably tell from my own passion for such actors as Russell Crowe and Clive Owen, I don’t mind a face that’s been lived in a little.  I can’t even articulate why I find Humphrey Bogart so beautiful.  He’s certainly not conventionally handsome, yet I could spend hours gazing at his face.  It’s no wonder he became the love of 19-year-old Lauren Bacall’s life.  I love CASABLANCA of course but KEY LARGO is one of my personal favorites. 

Ah Jimmy Cagney!  Another unconventional charmer who could play either angel or devil.  You never knew for sure whether he was going to smash a grapefruit in your face or break into a rousing chorus of Yankee Doodle Dandy, but his energy and his appeal were undeniable. 

If you like your men strong with a rolling gait and an unmistakable drawl, then John Wayne is the man for you.  I grew up watching him in all of his different incarnations and no matter how old or paunchy he got, he never really lost his craggy charm.  He was both a man’s man and a lady’s man and he made you feel as if you would always be safe in his arms. (And if you ever get a chance, watch a very young John Wayne in ANGEL AND THE BADMAN because it’s one of the most classic romances ever filmed.)

Beautiful and dangerous, James Dean was truly too fast to live and too young to die.  Although he was only 24 at the time of his death in 1955, this fair-haired boy from Indiana blazed his signature on our psyches to become an American icon. 

Ah Cary Grant ...there’s something timelessly irresistible about a man this gorgeous who can still laugh at himself. 

Errol Flynn can swash my buckle any day! 

Rock Hudson rocked our world (and Doris Day’s) in romantic comedies like PILLOW TALK, LOVER COME BACK and SEND ME NO FLOWERS.

The consummate gentleman in a world in desperate need of them, Gregory Peck used his smoldering good looks to make the world a better place.

Although he was undeniably hot, nobody has ever epitomized “cool” to both men and women like Steve McQueen. 

So who would you pick as your own personal SEXIEST MAN DEAD? Pop on over to my Facebook page HERE and let me know!

I know Russell Crowe is supposed to be a voracious reader but I’m not sure if the pic to the left is intended to promote reading or be a cautionary warning against smoking in bed.

I will say that it did get me thinking about where I like to read. Unlike some of you, I’m not coordinated enough to read in the bathtub. If I tried, I’m afraid the only result would be a very wrinkled me and a swollen, sodden mass of wood pulp that used to be a book.

In the summer I love to curl up on this divine divan in our sun room. I’ve coveted a divan ever since I was a little girl and I saw an illustration in LITTLE WOMEN of Jo March reclining on her attic divan on a rainy day, eating a juicy red apple and reading a novel. (Unfortunately I’m more likely to be stuffing my piehole with a bag of dark chocolate M&M’s.) It’s so relaxing to be reading with a gentle breeze drifting through the windows or the rain pattering down on the metal roof. Of course the real challenge is resisting the temptation to lay the book aside and snuggle down for an afternoon nap!

In the winter I nest in this oversized chair in the corner of our living room away from the TV. It was the wall-to-wall bookshelves that sold me on this house. There’s something terribly comforting about glancing up and seeing all of those other books glowing softly in the light--some already well-read and much-loved, others just waiting to be discovered. And the best thing about this chair-and-a-half is that there’s exactly enough room for me and at least half a cat! (Or one cat and half of me.)

When I was a child, my dad used to cook a big breakfast for us every Saturday morning. And my official job while he cooked was...to stay in bed and read! I still remember how cozy it felt to be tucked into bed reading HALF-MAGIC or THE PRINCESS BRIDE while the sound of my daddy’s whistling and the succulent aroma of bacon wafted up the stairs.

There are some books you always remember because of WHERE you read them. (Hospital waiting room, anyone?) I first read THE HOBBIT on a sunny Saturday afternoon while sitting cross-legged at the very top of a fire tower at Pennyrile State Park with the forest stretched out below me as far as the eye could see. (I could almost see the Eagles come swooping over the horizon to save the battle and the day!) I read ROOTS when I was 13 during a long car trip to Disney World. And I finished Stephen King and Peter Straub’s THE TALISMAN on the way home from a vacation in Massachusetts with Phil Collins singing, “Take Me Home” as the perfect accompaniment to the final moments of both the trip and the book.

So where do YOU like to read? Is there a special chair or couch that makes it easier for your imagination to make the leap into another world? Pop on over to my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/TeresaMedeirosFanPage to share your favorite spot!

I have something very special for you. A new video, not your usual book video at all … I want you to go watch it right now, then come back. I’ll wait right here. http://www.christinadodd.com/video_cia.html (whistling, tapping my fingers …)

You’re back! Isn’t that great? The video was so much fun to write and make! I’ve been anxiously waiting for the reprint of CASTLES IN THE AIR to hit the shelves so I could share the video with you — and you could share it with your friends.

The really good news is that CASTLES IN THE AIR has been re-released with a new, beautiful, normal cover, and it’s a darned entertaining story. Read the excerpt:

ENGLAND 1166

Then again, perhaps she couldn’t say anything. Bundled as she was, with her head bobbing beside the horse’s belly, he couldn’t see her face, and he began to wonder if she could breathe properly. Leaning down, he groped for her face, and those same strong teeth he admired bit deep into his fingertips. He jerked his hand back with a grunt and an oath.

Hadn’t he compared her to a wild creature? His own carelessness was responsible for his pain.

Her breath froze as she panted harshly, the sound rending the still air. Scratched from the sky by bare, ice-tipped branches, the snow sifted down relentlessly, filling the spaces between the dried leaves with a thin layer of white. It was cold, and getting colder by the moment. “We’ll be there soon,” he said aloud, and held her firmly as his promise brought renewed strife.

He topped the hill. Here the threatening blizzard threatened no more. It was reality, and the world disintegrated into a narrow, white passage that opened as they moved through and closed behind them. The woodcutter’s hut stood not far ahead, yet he worried about the lady. He leaned over to give her his body warmth and peered ahead.

Dug into the hill, the hut proved a godsend for him, providing a stock of fuel for warmth and a store of dried foods. Traveler’s provender, he’d guessed, provided by Lady Juliana of Lofts … and used by him for her abduction.

Order CASTLES IN THE AIR from Borders:
http://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?sku=0061080349

Order CASTLES IN THE AIR from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Castles-Air-Christina-Dodd/dp/0061080349/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256856883&sr=1-2

And remember — forward this letter and the link for the CASTLES IN THE AIR video http://www.christinadodd.com/video_cia.html to your friends who like a good laugh and a good book!

Warmly,

Christina Dodd
http://www.christinadodd.com
For the wild at heart!

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child’s name and how old he or she is. — Erma Bombeck