Wildcard Weekend - Trish Milburn

Please welcome Trish Milburn for the weekend, with a post on using your setting as character!

I’m a big fan of the outdoors, road trips, and parks, and I try to bring those things into my books as often as possible. I think they add richness to the setting, often making the setting a character in and of itself. Plus, it helps add authenticity to a story when you’ve been somewhere, seen what it looks like with your own eyes, experienced the scents in the air.

For instance, my first young adult novel came out this month – Heartbreak River written under the name Tricia Mills. I’ve been asked a lot about how I came up with the idea for the book, about a teenage girl whose family owns a river-rafting business in Colorado. Well, the beginning of the idea came as I was riding Amtrak’s California Zephyr train through Colorado. For about 200 miles through the western part of the state, the train meanders along the Colorado River. During the warmer months, the river is full of people rafting. I wondered what it would be like to run one of those rafting businesses, and what it would be like if you were a teen who lived much of your life on the river. Add in the fact that I think that part of the country is beautiful and my own fear of water (which plays a part in the story), and I had the makings of a story.

For my first book, A Firefighter In The Family (Harlequin American, September 2008, written under my own name), I focused on an area where I love to vacation – the Gulf Coast of the Florida Panhandle. The sugar-white sands, the clear blue-green water, the pastel-colored beach homes – they all spoke romance to me. It was fun to create my own small town, Horizon Beach, which has bits and parts of several of the communities I’ve visited along the coast. Plus, sometimes I mention actual places, like the Gulfarium, a marine show aquarium in Fort Walton Beach, and Gulf Islands National Seashore. The latter is a unit of the National Park Service, of which I am a huge fan. These parks are wonderful settings to use, either primarily as mystery author Nevada Barr does in her Ranger Anna Pigeon series, or as a secondary backdrop.

Sometimes I keep things a little closer to home. For my former full-time job as a magazine writer and editor, I traveled all over the state of Tennessee. One of the loveliest places is the mountainous northeastern part of the state. It has the same natural beauty as the Smoky Mountains without the crowds. So it was here that I set my May 2009 Harlequin American, Her Very Own Family . I used the lushness of the vegetation and the soothing sounds of the mountain streams to help create the setting for my heroine’s new café, which she opens inside an old gristmill she and the hero refurbish. It was an outward contrast to the city life she had known prior to coming to my fictional town to start her life anew. Once again, I was able to use a park — this time Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park — in one of my scenes. It’s a lovely place that seemed perfect for a picnic lunch for Audrey and Brady.

My upcoming books also depend heavily on the outdoors as not merely scenery but as a living, breathing character. I’m working on a rodeo story for Harlequin American that takes place in Wyoming. The fictional town is near Cody, a part of that state that I love.

All this devotion to visiting the setting aside, I have to admit that my second young adult novel, Winter Longing (Summer 2010), is set in Alaska — somewhere I’ve never been. Because of that, I had to do extensive research because I wanted to be able to bring the setting to full, vibrant, authentic life. So I picked the brain of a friend who’d lived there, read books, Googled a lot, and set my TiVo to record every program about Alaska that I could. From what my editors have said, all the work paid off. I’ve always wanted to visit Alaska, and hopefully I’ll be able to do so soon.

So, I’m wondering — is setting important to you as a reader? Do you like it when the setting seems like a breathing, three-dimensional character all on its own? Who are some authors you think do this well?


Trish Milburn is an eight-time finalist and two-time winner of Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart award. She writes for Harlequin American under her own name and for YA publisher Razorbill (Penguin) under the name Tricia Mills. Her new release is Her Very Own Family, out in May from Harlequin American.

Please visit her Web site and blog at www.trishmilburn.com.

Must Watch Friday :: CASTLE!

Nathan Fillion's name is cause alone to turn any show into 'must see' for The Pink Heart Society crew. Every week his new show, Castle, never fails to remind us why he's our favorite hero...second only to Hugh in a towel (and just edging out NatashaOakley's Richard Armitage infatuation).

This March, ABC bucked the reality show trend and delivered a one-hour drama with a fresh idea and dynamite delivery. Nathan Fillion stars as Rick Castle, a best-selling thriller novelist who is brought in to help the NYPD solve a serial killer investigation because the murderer is copying the crimes in his books.

Rick Castle is witty, insightful, and quite the handful! He's at a crossroads in his writing life, having just killed off the hero of the franchise that made him famous. He's looking for inspiration, and finds it in the form of detective Kate Beckett, who is more than able to keep him in check. The romantic tension is fantastic, something that's been missing from TV since Moonlighting .

Rick and Kate see the cases through completely different lenses. He's coming to it from almost an academic view, while as the daughter of a murder victim, she has an emotional view. He sees each case and an interesting exercise, while for her each case is about her duty to get the family the answers they deserve.

Castle's character is warmed by his devotion to his daughter Alexis, easily the most mature person in a household which also includes his over-the-top former actress mother, and an ex-wife he described as "Auntie Mame with a credit card". While his life is colorful, Kate Beckett's life is down-to-earth and relatable.

This is the perfect show for romance lovers - the larger-than-life hero, the heroine you'd love to have as a best friend, and a situation you can't take your eyes away from. Castle is on Monday nights, and available on the internet soon after. This week they'll be investigating a 20-year-old murder...and playing poker.
For more on Castle, check out Trish Wylie's My Continuing Crush On Nathan Fillion...



Jenna is hard at work on getting her house ready to sell - it keeps her from thinking about what her editor might think of her next title for Mills & Boon Modern Heat. In the meantime, Compromising Positions is available with chocolate, Kama Sutra yoga, a decade old crush and a steady addiction to sugar. To find out what Jenna is up to now...check out her website or blog.

Thursday Talk-Time

Kate Walker talks about what she's reading and one of her very favourite authors - Jodi Picoult

I’m between books at the moment. The last book is delivered (j-u-s-t on the dreadline) the next one is just a thought in my head. I don’t even have a contract. So now’s the time when I can read some of the books I can’t read when I’m writing.

I love to read. And I used to be able to read anything anytime anywhere. But when I’m deeply focussed on a book and living in the world of the story, with my characters by my side most of the day and night, then I have to be careful to choose books that won’t distract me too much. Books that won’t set me off down paths that my characters won’t or can’t follow. Books with themes that I can’t bring into the story I’m writing.

So while I’m between books then I indulge myself and I read all those books I can get my hands on. I’m writing this ahead of time and by the time you read it I will be away from home. I’ll be in Ireland. In Connemara. Here in fact.

I’ll be on a Writers’ Retreat with fellow Presents author Abby Green. We’ll be talking writing, walking – and probably talking writing as we do so – a little dining - a little wining . . . And - I hope - a lot of reading.

I’m taking a book that I’ve had on my TBR pile for way too long. A book I haven’t dared to open because I know what will happen. It will be as if a great big hand has reached out, grabbed me by the throat, and will hold me captive, unwilling to put the book down, until I reach the end.

What’s the book? Well this one is Change of Heart but it could be any one of the many bestselling titles by the brilliant Jodi Picoult. The first book of hers I read was book was Vanishing Acts - others being My Sister's Keeper and The Pact: A Love Story (P.S.) and the more recent, emotionally intense Nineteen Minutes which deals with the horror of school shootings and some of the possible reasons behind them.

It was my eldest sister who introduced me to Jodi Picoult when I was staying with her in Tasmania some years ago. ‘If you like her you'll become addicted,’ she warned and she was right - though it took me a couple of years to get round to reading the first book. (I didn't dare pick one from my sister's collection in case I didn't have time to finish it while I was there - and I would have been right. Being left with the plot dangling and not sorted out would have been a reader's torment!)


When I was at Caerleon Writers' Holiday one year, a literary agent described Jodi Picoult's books as 'issue' books. To call them that is to do them a disservice. OK, the plots are based around some highly emotive issues - like the one in My Sister's Keeper (now being made into a film starring Cameron Diaz and Alec Baldwin) where a child has been conceived specially to provide the life-saving bone marrow needed by her desperately ill sister - but that is not all they are about. And those 'issues' would be desperately dull and uninvolving without the sympathetic, ambiguous, and rounded characters that Picoult creates.

Put Jodi Picoult into Google and you'll get her web site labelled Novels About Family, Relationships, and Love.

That's more like it.

The books are written from the points of view of many of the main characters involved so that the chapter become like dozens of mirrors lined up besides, in front of and behind each other, each of them reflecting a slightly different angle, or turning an image back on itself so that you see it very differently from the way you believed things to be. An apparently totally non-sympathetic character reveals their real reasons for doing something, or a new voice tells you something that only they could know and suddenly you are made to review the conclusions you have come to and question whether they hold up any more.


If there is one thing that comes out of the books I have read it's that no one is black and white, there are innumerable shades of grey and one person's right may never ever be compatible with another's. But that doesn't make it any less right - for them.Fascinating stuff.


They are books that grab your emotions and twist hard - they are clearly fiction, spellbinding page turners and yet they force you to think about what you would do in the circumstances if you were forced into them. Because of the multiple viewpoints used you get to know all of her characters so well that you care what happens and you would kill if you were forced to put the book down just as you're getting to the verdict in the trial or whatever the conclusion is.


As one of the quotes on Jodi Picoult's web site says:

“Nothing is ever all said and done in a Picoult novel. One can imagine the ripples of these characters' lives echoing on and on, even after the last page has been turned. Odds are, you'll wish you hadn't turned it. ”


Yep - that's how I felt as I closed My Sister’s Keeper, and then Vanishing Acts and all the others I've read with a sigh of satisfaction and regret. Luckily for me there are plenty more where that came from. I have Plain Truth and The Tenth Circle lined up as well as Change of Heart- the only problem is finding time to sit down and read them because they're not books I like to read in snatches here and there.

So, Abby – my apologies in advance. We’ll do all that talking and walking and discussing and maybe even some writing – but if you see me open a book by Jodi Picoult, then I’ll just be doing one thing – reading right through to the end.

Kate's latest Mills & Boon Modern Romance Cordero's Forced Bride is on sale on the Mills & Boon website and Amazon.co.uk. . The Presents edition is still available on eHarlequin and Amazon.com

Her 2006 title At The Sheikh's Command is re-issued in a 3 in 1 volume Sold to the Sheikh out in May.

You can find out more about Kate and her books on her website or for the most up to date news, visit her blog.

Writer’s Wednesday – which planet are you on?

Julie Cohen and Michelle Styles have both been blogging recently about the difficulties of living in a writers’ world and the real world at the same time – and that’s made me think a lot about the subject. When you’re living on two planets, you have a tendency to ask lots of nosey questions, you sometimes talk about (or to) people who don’t exist, and you might end up giving someone an answer they really don’t expect, because you’re answering a question from one of the people in your head rather than the person who's talking to you in real life...

Which planet are you on?

Most of the time, writers are on both Planet Earth and Book World. And sometimes juggling between the two is a bit difficult. When we don’t answer a question or mumble something completely irrelevant, it isn’t because we’re too selfish or don’t care enough to pay attention: it’s because we’re juggling.

Writers are not selfish monsters. (Better qualify that – some are, but so are some non-writers!) We all feel guilty and convinced that we’re not doing enough for family and friends, but I’d bet serious money that working women all over the world feel that same guilt. Our nearest and dearest know that we’re living on two planets, so they soon learn to read the signs. They can see when we’re distracted (sadly, children learn very quickly that the answer is ‘yes’ even when we haven’t heard the question, because authors on deadline don’t pay quite as much attention as mums usually do). They know when not to bother talking because you’re miles away and won’t answer, and they know when you’ll be chatty so they get the best out of you. They’re used to you borrowing them to choreograph something (e.g. if my heroine sits on a table, where is her eyeline in relation to the hero?). They understand that your office might look like a tip but if they want to borrow a pair of scissors or a particular reference book, you can produce them in half a second.

Away from our desks, we multi-task. We’re physically on Planet Earth, but part of us is still in Book World. Other writers can spot it straight off. I was having lunch in a café in Wells-next-the-Sea when the friend I was lunching with asked, ‘You’re having a lightbulb moment, aren’t you?’ (Only a writer – or someone who lives with one – would understand that. Anyone who overheard the conversation probably thought we were both barking mad! My friend realised that I was mentally taking notes and redecorating the place to suit my heroine, moving it to a different part of the coast, and I’d just changed the weather outside.)

As for talking about (or to) people who don’t exist... Well, if they’re not real to us, how do we expect them to be real for our readers? It’s not being eccentric – it’s doing the job well. Think of it as a bit like Method acting.

And asking people lots of questions – is that so bad? Actually, no. Provided you’re not aggressive about it, what the other person will take away from the conversation is that you were interested in them and/or something that’s important to them, you asked questions, you let them talk AND YOU LISTENED. What you actually did was make that person feel really important for a little while and that made them feel good. And a few months down the line they’ll discover that you gave them a credit in your book in the acknowledgements. How cool is that? Most people outside the profession don’t know many writers, so the fact that someone put their name in a book and said a public thank you is a big deal. We tend to take that part of it for granted because we’re writers, and several of our colleagues/friends are writers.

It’s easy to feel guilty and convinced that you’re neglecting your loved ones, particularly if you’re a mum to pre-teens. But remember this: those who know you and love you really do understand. They know you’re not like other people – you’re a writer and your imagination is a real place. Your quirkiness is actually one of the reasons why they love you, and they know you’re trying your best to get the balance right.

And there are also advantages to being a writer’s children. When you take them out, you end up telling them stories. If you take them on a family outing that just so happens to be a research trip for you, then they’ll get an awful lot more out of that trip than the average child because you’ll be asking questions or sharing your knowledge. If we go to a castle (the one on the right is Norwich Castle, one of my favourite haunts), my kids will know exactly what it felt like to be living there nine hundred-odd years ago – they’ll know the sights and smells and sounds and tastes and textures children experienced back then. Instead of seeing a mound in a field and thinking ‘oh, well, it’s a mound’, they’ll be back with Basil Brown, excavating Sutton Hoo and discovering the ghost of a ship. Or they’ll be further back still, in the kingdom of the Wuffings.

Or they’ll get to experience different cultures – I was so glad when Sarah Morgan told me that her kids can tell where she’s setting a book because of what she cooks for dinner, because it’s exactly the same in this house. Recently, I wrote a book set in Norway, so we tried gjetost (a very sweet cheese that looks like fudge) and made proper Norwegian waffles – the kids loved it. And when I wrote Surrender to the Playboy Sheikh, we ate a lot of things involving pomegranates. (My DH looked a bit worried, until I explained that no, it wasn’t a weird craving – it was an important plot point.)

So there are definite advantages to living on two planets. And, since I’m nosey… how do your friends and family know when you’re not on the same planet?














In the UK, next week on shelves you can find the second in Kate’s To Tame a Playboy duo, Playboy Boss, Pregnancy of Passion. In Australia The Children’s Doctor’s Special Proposal is out now; and in the US you can get The Millionaire Boss’s Reluctant Mistress (which is a Presents Extra reprint of the first in Kate’s Posh Docs trilogy, Her Celebrity Surgeon). They’re also available on the US and Aus Harlequin websites, and the UK Mills and Boon website.

You can find out more about these books, and Kate, on her website (http://www.katehardy.com/) and her blog (http://katehardy.blogspot.com/)

Temptation Tuesday - Texas Cowboys

A big PHS welcome back to Linda Conrad, with a super sexy post that is still tops in our books!

Texas cowboys are out.

What?

Oh, yes. Cowboys are out and rich millionaires, vampires and sheiks are in.

At least that’s what I’m hearing in the romance industry. Now, I like rich millionaires, vampires and sheiks as well as the next gal. So much so that I’m considering writing a new series featuring sheik heroes. But please don’t tell me cowboys are out. And please don’t give up on Texas.

You may not think of Texas as the wild west anymore. Most of it isn’t. But today there are still thousands of acres of ranch land and many wild spots along the border of Texas and Mexico. My latest mini-series The Safekeepers takes place in a small town near the Mexican border and on a huge ranch. It’s the story of two brothers and their sister. The men had left Texas behind, the sister wanted them to return. But all of them come home to find their future on the ranch of their childhood. None of the heroes is exactly a cowboy either. In fact the hero of IN SAFE HANDS is a retired British soldier. But each of them has the mindset of the cowboy.

I know Texas may not be as chic or sophisticated as a European capital. Nor does it seem as much fun as a place like New Orleans. But there is just something about Texas that fits like a favorite pair of old shoes.

Paraphrasing the state’s travel guide: Texas is so big it feels like a whole other country! Yes, the state does have fabulous sand beaches and big city sights. But what makes it still Texas to me are the gorgeous mountains and rugged desert. The water-carved canyons and bluebonnet-strewn rolling ranchlands. The still isolated and wooly feel of the land bordering the Rio Grande. The land is somehow our history as a nation.

And if it weren’t for Texas where would all the cowboys go? Gotta love those hunky cowboys with broad shoulders and rippling muscles, honed from wrangling all that cattle and riding all those horses.

The modern romantic cowboy is more of a mindset than an actual person. He must be tough and hard working, but he must also be kind and honest to a fault. A cowboy is always the good guy. We Americans need books about cowboys to remind us that the country is large, but never so large that we can’t stop and enjoy the world around us the way a cowboy does on horseback.

Modern cowboys stand for all that is pure and true. He’s never on the wrong side. He knows that a job must be done and he’s the guy who can do it. He can stay up all night to finish a job (or make love to his woman) the same way his counterparts did a hundred years ago on the trail. A cowboy never looks for trouble. He’s the man who will take on the bad guys in a heartbeat, but will also go twenty miles out of his way to take a sick dog to the vet. They defend good people who cannot defend themselves. They are honest and polite. And they know how to treat a woman.

Modern cowboys are not all molded alike. They each have their own style, and that style is uniquely suited for romance novels.

I love reading and writing romances about modern cowboys. What about you? What’s your favorite kind of hero today?

Leave me a comment and I’ll draw one person to win a signed copy of IN SAFE HANDS.

For more contests, recipes, newsletters and news, check out: http://www.lindaconrad.com/

Male on Monday: Philip Glenister

Fire up the Quattro! Today Michelle Styles examines the appeal of British actor, Philip Glenister.

About two years ago, I was writing Viking Warrior, Unwilling Wife and needed a sort of lived in unreconstructed male to model my hero on. Fortunately, my husband had just bought the first series of Life on Mars and Philip Glenister fit the bill. Now, for a few weeks I went around thinking – okay, why does this man work as a hero? Then when the second series came out, I started to notice that various women journalists were also talking about Philip Glenister and the character, Gene Hunt. One even went so far to opine that he needed to his own series. After all he stole every scene he was in. By the time the spin off series appeared, the Gene Hunt/Philip Glenister as a full blown sex symbol was accepted in the general press. And this is a man who doesn't get the girl, doesn't do on screen kisses and still commands the viewer's attention. He just is an alpha male and I think well deserving a place on the Male on Monday roster.

If you are an aficionado of Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! book on screenwriting, one could argue that the Life on Mars and indeed Demons falls into the Buddy Love genre . Think Lethal Weapon or buddy cop films. It is because the growth of the relationship between Glenister and his fellow lead carries the core of the plot. One could argue that Demons failed slightly because the chemistry between the two leads was not as strong as it is in Life on Mars.
So why? Is it just the character or is it the actor? Is the caveman fantasy? Or something more?
I would argue it is the actor, Philip Glenister and the core of integrity that he brings to his roles. He brings a certain intense concentration, warmth and humanity to his roles. You can tell the characters care and that his characters live by a code of honour. It might not be your code, but it is a code. And for any member of his team, he will give his all. There is a certain intensity and focus to his acting.

Before Life on Mars (the British version), his face was better known than his name. But since then he has appeared in Cranford and Demons as well as the Life on Mars franchise. He is a hardworking actor who has perfected his craft.

Born 10 February 1963, Philip Glenister is the son of the director, John Glenister and brother to actor Robert Glenister. After training at the Central School of Speech and Drama, Philip Glenister made his acting debut in 1990. While never out of work, he tended to play small and bit parts until he landed the role of Gene Hunt in 2006. He has also appeared in the movie Calendar Girls and Kingdom of Heaven.
As for his private life, what can one say except that he’s married to the actress Beth Goddard (who played Suzanne de Tournay in The Scarlet Pimpernel) and has two young daughters. They met 1996 at a friend's birthday party. When you read the interviews, he comes across as a family man and a hard working actor. He is also a firm supporter of the BBC and the excellent work it can do, but is also a strong advocate for good writing and thinks that Mrs Gaskell rocks. Definitely hero type material in his private life then.
Oh and Ashes to Ashes returns to BBC 1 tonight ( 20 April). So if you are wondering what all the fuss is about, make sure you watch. You will be glad you did.

Michelle Styles's latest, Impoverished Miss, Convenient Wife is out in the shops now. While Philip Glenister did not serve as a model for that book's hero, she does insist all her heroes have a certain core of integrity.