My work of romantic suspense, which I plan to re-release after July 5th, won an award.  The cute trophy was waiting for me when I got home from Boston.

My Everything won a Lorie for Best Romantic Suspense.  Click on the link to check out the other winners.

It was kind of exciting to receive the award when I’d never received notification that I’d won.  A fan happened to mention to me months ago that she’d seen my name, but I didn’t hear anything until now.

So, here’s the award.  I stuck it next to my Booksellers Best First Book Award for Captured.   They can be BFFs!

Here’s the new cover!  Thanks, Lories!

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1.  Still away from California (or almost out of the country!)… In Boston with author, Penny Watson.

2.  The drive to and from northern Maine was outstanding.  The hike was nirvana.  As Tom Stronach knows, I lost a show while hiking in a peat bog – sucked the shoe right off my foot – but miracle of miracles, the peat bog spit it out and I was able to complete the hike with two, albeit, one, soggy shoe.  Experienced my first noreaster which I thought might wash away the entire town of Machias.  Saw bald eagles but no moose and no bear.

3.  Ate quite possibly the best, most decadent, fast food of my life, a real true lobster roll from Red’s Eats, right off the highway in Wisscasset.  My daughter and I drove from there to Penny’s house swimming in a major out of body food high and yet we still had room for a visit to Chef Ming Tsai’s Blue Ginger, where thanks to our friend Chef John Malik, author of Doughnuts for Amy, we met Chef Tsai and took photos with him!  All I can remember is that the food was to die for… just like when I ate at the French Laundry, it’s going to take some time to remember exactly what I ate.  And no, that’s not cleavage.  Stop staring down my shirt.  I don’t have cleavage – the magic of a push up bra!

4.  So my daughter flew home this morning.  My son is fine in Machias – had to see for myself – many thanks, Stephen King, and I miss my dog and my hubby and he knows it’s in that order.  Tomorrow Penny and I get to head off to the New England Writer’s Conference.  Fun!

5.  Oh yeah… TSA lost part of my computer charger so I am using Penny’s computer.  She’s a love.  See you!  Julia

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my upcoming re-release?  It’ll be out in July.  Here it is.  For My Everything.  I’ll see you when I get back from Boston/Maine.  Hey, ladies, when I finish the bio of Marilyn Monroe, who wants it?  I’ll mail it to you.  Love, Julia

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With a side of grits?  Hashbrowns?  Bacon?  Ham?  On whole wheat toast?

The subject came up between hubby and myself when I read a post about why men should read romance and women, thrillers.  I read both, duh, in addition to books in most genres, provided they are well-written.  You can read the post for yourself at The Red Pen of Doom.

My husband reads the occasional romance.  Shocking, I know.  It all began back when I worked my way through Karen Marie Monings’ Highlander romances.  He and I were on vacation and I handed him each book as I finished.  Some he thought were just plain dumb, but the one book he truly enjoyed was The Immortal Highlander, Adam’s book.  He liked this book because not only is Adam a complex character, a perfect chimera of good and bad… kind of a trickster figure, Gabrielle is an intelligent heroine.  I’ve noticed that once a story is finished, KMM’s heroines (when they reappear in later installments) tend toward TSTL.  Gabrielle seemed to be the type to remain in character throughout.  In addition, my husband felt she had a damn good reason for remaining a virgin into her twenties.   She was a Sidhe Seer and she was attracted to the fae males, not human males.  There ya go.

He got the concept all right – women who were virgins for whatever reason/excuse/prevarication/rationalization…. mostly because at the heart of each of Monings’ stories lies this theme – the virgin heroines are waiting, like Sleeping Beauty, for true love’s kiss, whether they realize it or not.  Hubby just didn’t believe it.  It didn’t fit with his world view – which is this– women enjoy sex as much as men.

Maybe it takes the right man, a strong, secure man, to read romance.  Who knows?

I think I’m lucky.  This will make my husband blush, but every one of my heroes is he.  Or is it him?  Each hero possesses one or more of his attributes.  (Hey, get your nasty minds out of the gutter!)

I have my own personal hero to model my characters after.  And he likes to read a few romance books.  He reads all my books!  I’ll tell you the romance hero he personally identifies with the most – because my husband is very into seduction - and this is one of my favorite books - he loves Marc Chastain from Kill and Tell.  For that matter, he’s also a big fan of Gray Rouillard from After the Night.  So macho, so alpha, so protective and so big hearted.

Men really should read romance.  It would be good for them.  They might just get the emotional connection we women crave.  I know thrillers, provided they are not gratuitous gore-filled slash-fests, are good for me!  I mean, look at all the existential angsty pleasure I derive from The Walking Dead and the time paradox I get to think about while watching The Terminator…

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Some things are just sticky, you know?  Honey, syrup, melted chocolate, kids’ fingers.  Or, on the other hand, genre fiction like Lawrence Block’s dark and stark yet  luminous prose– which I rediscovered last year, or the disorientation of The Other Laura, by Cheryl Lynn.  Or Jamie’s role as ultimate archetypal romance hero in Outlander along with Claire’s annoying hemorrhoid obsession.  (Read enough of the series and you get there.  Wish I would have stopped at Outlander.)

The brawny, ancient Highlander Druids from KMM’s Highlander series.  The perfect seduction scene from Linda Howard’s Kill and Tell.  Gray Roulliard in After the Night.  Look him up.

The heroine’s palpable fear and arousal in Katalina Leon’s brilliant opening to the sensual Nobelsword.

The Walking Dead is as sticky as pine tar.  Scrub away, it ain’t comin’ off.  Good writing is like pine tar… It sticks.  Firefly stuck too.  Shiny!  So did some episodes of BSG… Sharon (Athena) having tea in her holding cell with Adama.  That episode was perfection.

I’ve read a lot of books, been reading since I was 18 months old– my dad didn’t play games or sports but he believed in reading from birth.  Many books stick, some rattle around, sort of blending together in my head.  Most books have made an impression on me, maybe not all, but most.

That is my goal, it’s so very simple.  To make an impression.  To make a reader think about a story after he or she has finished the last page, to make a reader wish there was more than, The End.

Captured is the book that makes me want to write more.  And I’d love an opportunity to add to Pushing Her Boundaries.  However, both will have to wait until I get the rights back.

What am I reading right now?  Because of two movies, I’m reading two books.  I was disappointed with the movie, The Help, but watching it I realized I wanted to know more about that era in the South.  Picked up a used copy of Coming of Age in Mississippi, by Anne Moody.  It’s a great book.  Can’t put it down.  My Week With Marilyn intrigued me so much, and I’m such a fan of her movies, that I bought a used copy of her bio – Marilyn Monroe, Her Biography, by Donald Spoto.  I’ll start reading that on my trip.  :)

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