Vivacious Vixens of Romance Blog

Morgan Knight is my latest hero. He’s the tall, dark, guy in my upcoming book with eXtasy, The Knight of Pentacles, her Knight in Shining Amore in the tarot series.

If you read the traditional meaning of the Knight of Pentacles he’s a steady, hardworking, not very ambitious person. He makes enough to be happy but has no huge aspirations. He can also be someone who’s out of work. Seems a fitting card for today’s economic situation. People who have been in their jobs years, thinking they have security are suddenly finding out it’s not there. All their hard work, down the tubes.

If you look at the traditional card, the knight depicted is the antethisis of the laid back, steady guy. He’s in full shiny armor, on a big black stallion and seems ready for battle. In many ways he is the Galahad of the tarot’s knights. And do we ever really think of Galahad? No, is the dashing and handsome Lancelot if not Arthur himself.

Such is Morgan’s situation. A hard worker, going along, hanging with his friends and the kind of steady guy a lot of us women have over looked over the years. I know I met my fair share of “Morgans” in my early dating life. They were the average guys, mid-level jobs, kind of quiet, no flash and way serious in conversation. If you took a few minutes though to sit down and talk to them you’d see that they were actually kind of cute, when they smiled it was warm and genuine and if you bothered to get up close and personal you might have noticed that under their kinda loose shirts they did their time in the gym. If you got past the average but still appealing looks they had incredible minds. Smart guys who didn’t quite have the social skills to get out there and dazzle the ladies. And they weren’t the bad boys either. They played by the rules. Once you stopped looking for daring drama – if you did – you’d be lucky if one of these diamonds in the rough was still single.

That’s Morgan. He’s not an alpha. When he meets the woman he’s been searching for he…well he doesn’t storm in and do the alpha thing. He does something much more appealing. Just what, well you’ll need to wait for the Knight of Pentacles to find out.

I much prefer Saturdays — Sundays always mean the weekend I’ve waited for what feels so long for are ending.  That’s partly why I liked working graves and weekends — I had off Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and a smidge of Friday. I didn’t have to deal with the Sunday blahs and change of direction Saturdays mean I still have time to play.

Today is a good Sunday because it’s my favorite kind of day — cloudy and a bit chilly, perfect for writing. A couple of weeks ago I started working on a book whose working title is With All Dispatch. It’s book 2 of my Treasures Antique Store series and the heroine is a dispatcher, hence the working title. I had to put it aside to run through my edits on Michael’s Flight and while waiting for my edits on The Spell and round two of Michael’s Flight I need to escape — for me it’s into another story and Mr. Merle with his wonderful store opens up myriad possiblilties for me.

I like my heroine in the story and she really deserves the hero that emerges for her.

So that leads to a question for the readers — which heroine do you feel most deserved the hero she got in the end?

Detective Mike Malone

2009 has definitely been an outstanding year for me. After 2-1/2 years of looking for a good job (escaping the job from hell) I did land what is pretty darn close to a dream job. I now work with great people and doing interesting work.

On the heels of my new job I signed Michael’s Flight, book 2 of the Descendants of Earth series with eXtasy Books as well as landing a slot in the Cafe Nowhere anthology. America’s Hero with Champagne was released to outstanding reviews.

Recently I signed two books with Siren-Bookstrand which I am utterly thrilled about — The Spell, a romantic suspense with paranormal overtones is scheduled to be released in October and His Eyes, a time travel in November. Along the way — actually within a day of signing with Siren I got to talking with my long time buddy Phyllis Campbell about promotion and working together and she’s known Tracy and Mary for a long time and one thing led to another and here we are! What’s so great about forming up with these ladies is we all write in different genres and with completely different voices. While you most likely won’t see it here, having someone outside your regular zone to bounce ideas off of can definitely help you to stretch yourself.

Our contest is underway, our books are in process and I’ve got a tentative on my first cover! Whoo Hoo!  It hasn’t been approved yet, but I’m attaching the mock up done by my all time most favorite cover artist Skylar Sinclair. To date she’s done my most successful covers and this one is by far my favorite. Here’ s hoping it’s approved!