Breast Cancer and the Whirlwind of the Last Few Months

Okay, I have to admit, my blog is starting to feel overwhelming. Mostly because I’m so behind now that I don’t know how to catch up.

But – now that I think about it – I do know. One foot in front of the other, right? That’s become my new mantra.

So here we go:

Since September…

  • I skidded into the finish line getting my fourth book done (Lavender Island 2) on Oct. 6.
  • The next day, I went in for a long-overdue mammogram because I felt a lump about 2 days prior.
  • Over the next couple of weeks, I did a follow-up visit to my dr, a diagnostic mammo, an ultrasound, a biopsy, and was diagnosed with breast cancer on Oct. 19.
  • My edits came in on Oct. 21.
  • Life became a bit of chaos through the end of October as I navigated fear, appointments, more fear, a PET-CT, an MRI, a gene test, meeting a breast surgeon, meeting an oncologist, fear, edits, having port-placement surgery, my regular full-time job, fear, edits, and more edits. Also Halloween. Also my son’s 16th birthday.
  • I started mellowing out once all the testing was done and I was “staged.” I was put at Stage II-B breast cancer, which means lymph nodes were also affected, but also nowadays has about a 97% success rate of living beyond 5 years, so that relaxed me considerably and made me square my shoulders and just get ready to do this thing.
  • November was mostly about telling everyone that I had breast cancer – Who to tell? How? Plus I worked on edits for 6 weeks. By Thanksgiving, though, I was feeling strangely calm and ready to roll on the breast cancer treatment! We’d decided on chemo first, surgery second.
  • My first book with my new publisher (The Kiss on Castle Road) came out in the UK on Dec. 1.
  • My first chemo was Dec. 3.
  • I turned in my edits on Dec. 7.
  • Then December was another month of chaos, but the fun kind — lots to keep my mind occupied while I did two rounds of chemo. My older kids came home from out of state; we mostly sat around and visited (very low-level shopping, wrapping, and decorating – they helped out a lot!) Plus there were lots of family gatherings and parties that made the month fly by and kept me very preoccupied. My husband shaved my head on Dec. 25, and things got real.
  • My third round of chemo was on New Year’s Eve.
  • The Kiss on Castle Road launched officially on New Year’s Day.
  • January was adjusting to a new reality of no hair, feeling sicker with chemo, and not as many happy distractions to keep me from noticing how sick I felt. But I was excited about my book!!!
  • My copyedits for the second Lavender Island book came in on Jan. 7ish and were due Jan. 26.
  • I had my fourth (and last) round of the “worst” chemo on Jan. 14.
  • I turned in my copyedits for the 26th.

And here we are! – Both books are done, all edits are done, my contract is done, my “worst” chemo is done, the holidays are done, and I’m suddenly feeling like the groundhog from yesterday’s Groundhog’s Day, popping my head out, looking around, and seeing what’s going on. What happened while I was in my own little personal tornado since late September?

And where do I go from here?

Happy New Year! Did you get your KISS?

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope all of you got your deserved kiss at midnight, but if you’re still waiting, my latest book, THE KISS ON CASTLE ROAD, launched today and can provide just the solution! Those of you who preordered probably got your KISS at midnight exactly, but for those who didn’t, you can still get your KISS today!

This book got an early release in the UK on December 1. (Hello and welcome to new UK readers!) And it actually hit the No 1 spot for contemporary romance there for nearly a week! I was so thrilled.

I hope you all love this book as much as I do. It’s the first in a new series, which will be set entirely on fictional “Lavender Island” off the coast of California.

(Fun fact: Lavender Island was based on a real island off the coast of California, called Santa Catalina Island. Have any of you been there? If you have, you might recognize in this book some of the quirky features of Catalina, like the bison, the golf carts, and more. Over the next month, I’ll be uploading some fun photos and videos of the real Catalina Island if you want to see it. Be sure to visit THE KISS ON CASTLE ROAD book page on my website throughout January to check it out!)

the-kiss-on-castle-road.media kit photoNatalie and Elliott were so much fun to write, and I particularly loved writing my very first “nerd hero.” Sweet, quiet guys are the true unsung heroes (and often the best men in the world to fall in love with), and I wanted to give them a romance story, too. So Elliott leaped into my mind. He’s everything I wanted him to be. I also feel strongly that a solid friendship is the basis for any long-lasting romantic relationship (and especially marriage) — do you all agree? I was glad to write a story where that was the main theme. I was worried it wouldn’t be sexy enough, having such a slow build of friendship in the background, but I think Natalie and Elliott helped me hit just the right note of sexual tension to keep you flipping pages!

I hope you love their story. And I hope you love the cast of crazy senior citizens and other island residents (including the ones with whiskers!) — they should all give you a lighthearted, endearing, fun, warm, and romantic ride to start off your new year!

Here’s the buy information:

Print books and audiobooks available here:

Amazon  |  Target.com  |  Barnes and Noble.com  |  Powell’s  |  Walmart
The Book Depository (ships internationally)

Or order an e-book that you can download and read right NOW (for only $3.99!) here:

Amazon


Do you want to read the first chapter first?

You can read Chapter 1 here.


 

Happy New Year to everyone! And here’s to lots of love, laughter and kisses in the new year!

Favorite Christmas Romance Novellas

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I love the holidays. And I love holiday books! I used to buy about four or five new Christmas-themed romance books a year, stack them all on my night stand right before Thanksgiving, then read them slowly between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was glorious.

I always adored that the stories were seasonal, and they got me in the Christmas spirit when I wanted to be – my favorite time of the year! (Actually, November is my favorite time of the year, and, by the way, where are the Thanksgiving novellas? I’d totally read those! Big family drama, chaos in the kitchen … I’d be up for that. …)

Anyway, I also love that the usual Christmas romance novellas are only 40,000 words each, and I can read each one quickly – no long-drawn-out plots where you have to remember all the characters for weeks on end. I can usually do one a night, all the way up to Christmas.

And I love that they are usually sold in anthologies of three to five writers from a single publishing house, so it’s a great way to get introduced to a lot of new writers. Heard of a writer but not sure if you’d like her? Try a novella! It’s not much commitment, but you can get a clear sense of her style right away.

Love all that.

But, I must admit, my love started to fade when I read too many of them in a row.

There’s always one of these four things: a snow storm, a faraway cabin, a car or plane stranded in a blizzard, and at least one cynic who has hated Christmas since he/she was a child (usually the hero, but sometimes the heroine).

And if the story isn’t about a snow storm and a faraway cabin, it’s about an office Christmas party where two workers get each other for Secret Santa or one has to dress up as Santa. (Usually it’s the hero, and of course he looks really hot in the Santa suit.)

Now, granted – I’m only reading contemporaries. Maybe the historicals have greater plot variety. (Although historicals would be interesting, since Christmas wasn’t really a popular holiday until around the Victorian era, right? What do the Regencies feature – winter solstice?)

Anyway, out of all of the Christmas novellas I’ve read (among the 30-plus that are starting to sound the same), there’s one that really stands out.

But before I tell you what it is, I’ll list everything I’ve read. I’ll probably go back and reread a bunch of these this year. Some were really terrific:

  • Dashing Through the Mall(Sherryl Woods, Darlene Gardner, Holly Jacobs – Harlequin, 2006)
  • The Christmas that Changed Everything(Mary Lynn Baxter, Marilyn Pappano, Christine Flynn – Silhouette, 2000)
  • Santa Baby (Jennifer Crusie, Lori Foster, Carly Phillips – St. Martins, 2006 – bought this one because I’m a big Jenny Crusie fan)
  • The Night Before Christmas(Lori Foster, Erin McCarthy, Jill Shalvis, Kathy Love, Katherine Garbera, Kylie Adams – Kensington, 2005)
  • Sugar and Spice(Fern Michaels, Beverly Barton, Joanne Fluke, Shirley Jump – Zebra, 2006 – bought this because I started reading Shirley Jump’s blog)
  • A Holiday of Love(Judith McNaught, Jude Deveraux, Arnette Lamb and Jill Barnett – Pocket Books, 1994 – an oldie, but I found it at a second-hand store and wanted to read it because I’d become a recent fan of Judith McNaught and Jude Deveraux)
  • Jingle Bell Rock(Lori Foster, Donna Kauffman, Susan Donovan, Janelle Denison, Alison Kent, Nancy Warren – Kensington, 2003)
  • A NASCAR Holiday 2(Pamela Britton, Gina Wilkins, Ken Casper, Abby Gaines – HQN, 2007 – bought this one because I’d just taken a class with Abby Gaines and wanted to see her newest release)
  • Silver Bells(JoAnn Ross, Mary Burton, Judy Duarte – Zebra, 2008)
  • Santa, Honey(Kate Angell, Sandra Hill, Joy Nash – Dorchester, 2009)

But the one that stands out among these 30-plus is this one: Susan Donovan’s story in Jingle Bell Rock. It was called “Turning Up the Heat” (with characters Valerie and furnace-repairman Earl). It was just so … different. It had a different kind of plot, a completely surprise ending, and was just all-around fun. It makes me want to go find everything of Susan Donovan’s now.

And the newest one I have on my Kindle but haven’t read yet is last year’s Cowboys for Christmas, by my Golden Heart sisters Terri Osburn, Kim Law and Liz Talley. I couldn’t read it last year because I was on deadline, but this year I definitely want to make time for it!

So tell me – do you like Christmas romance novellas? What’s your favorite? What plots keep you coming back for more? And what plots do you wish to see out there?

Ready for more holiday book recommendations? Here are my writer friends who are blogging on this topic today: Paranormal writer Kay Hudson | Contemporary writer Tamra Baumann | Novelists with romantic elements Jean Willet and Natalie Meg Evans | and Romantic Suspense writer Sharon Wray. (Oooh, and check out Sharon’s interview with Suzanne Brockmann and her daughter right below that post!)

And please come back and visit more of our Writer Wednesdays. Here’s what’s on tap:

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My Favorite Character Name

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So one of the things I’m excited to catch up on now is doing some blogging with some of my writer friends. This month’s post is on favorite character names. (I’ll be posting some of the previous posts I’ve missed as well and backdating them – stay tuned!)

Anyway, for favorite names, we decided we could talk about names we’ve created for our own characters or names we’ve loved in others’ books. And at the end of this, I’d really love to hear names you’ve all loved as readers!

Of my own character names, I think the one I’ve loved the most is secondary character “Rabbit” from The Red Bikini.

Rabbit is a compilation of real surfers — I drew from one’s looks, one’s surf style, one’s age, and another’s personality. But the one who I modeled his easygoing, funny attitude on is Robert “Wingnut” Weaver. Wingnut is in the documentary movie Endless Summer II, but I’ve also seen him in other television programs, and he always has the funny-but-sweet personality I wanted for that character. Wingnut is also a leader and teacher, which was perfect for Rabbit. So I had my model. But a lot of Wingnut’s big persona is in his crazy name! And I wanted a great nickname like that. So I set out to think of a crazy nickname to capture my character’s zany, sweet, funny and big personality.

First I named him “Turtle.” In fact, I wrote half the book with him named that. But my husband and good friend Grace both warned me that “Turtle” was too cliché a name for a surfer sidekick. (It’s nice to have people talk straight to you like that!) So I reluctantly agreed and tried to think of something else. Eventually “Rabbit” leaped to mind. There is a real Australian surfer named Rabbit Bartholomew who is considered one of the best 50 surfers of all time and could have served as a model for my Rabbit, but I honestly wasn’t thinking of him. I was just thinking Nickname — Turtle — Funny — Animal. And “Rabbit” came to mind. (In fact, I thought more of John Updike’s “Rabbit” series, which I read and loved in high school, more than Rabbit Bartholomew.)

So that’s how that name was born. And now I can’t imagine him named anything else. I get nearly as much fan mail for Rabbit as I do for the main hero Fin!

A second character name I really love is secondary character “Renece” in Ten Good Reasons. Renece (pronounced to rhyme with “Denise”) was the name of a girl I knew in high school who I always thought was really pretty. And I always thought, for some reason, that if I had a daughter with my then-boyfriend/eventually-husband, she would look just like her, with the same coloring and same hair. So when I got pregnant eventually with a little girl, I knew I wanted that name. But my hubby didn’t love it. And my parents didn’t love it. No one did, really. So eventually I abandoned the name and we went with “Rene” instead. (And my daughter Rene does look just like her!) But when I needed a name in Ten Good Reasons for a secondary character who wouldn’t be in the book much but who needed a memorable name, I went with “Renece.” And when my mom read the book for the first time, she called me and said, “You finally got to use your name!” So that’s my little secret.

As for names I’ve loved in other books, for some reason Jenny Crusie’s characters leap to mind. She often picks off-beat names that conjure strange or goofy images, but then you fall in love with the character and eventually fall in love with the name — Min, Cal, Davy, Agnes, Daisy, the list goes on and on. So I love all of Jenny Crusie’s character names!

What are some of your favorite character names? Or, conversely, you can list names you really didn’t like and explain why — it’s good for us authors to know pet peeves.

If you want to hear other writers’ fave names, check out the blogs of writers Sharon Wray, Kay Hudson, and Wendy LaCapra, who are all participating in this month’s blog topic. (And I think it’s Sharon’s birthday today! Be sure to go over and say Happy Birthday, Sharon!)

DD_500And, speaking of Wendy, she has a new historical romance release coming Monday that has to do with names! Check out her teaser:

Fate tore the Duke and Duchess of Wynchester apart, and they’ve sparred from afar ever since. But when the stitched-up Duke wins time with his duchess, he finds the infuriating nickname Wyn may not be only thing he can learn to love.

To go to Wendy’s gorgeous excerpt/buy page, where you can learn more about the book, giveaways, read excerpts, and more, click HERE.

 

And don’t forget to come back for more Writer Wednesdays in future months! Here’s what we’ll be writing about:

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Scenes from Summer …

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So I’m way behind on blogging, aren’t I? I had a really great summer, despite the crazy writing schedule that kept me writing basically every minute of every weekend. But my family kept me happy! We had a great Fourth of … Continue reading

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