Join me in Last Stand, Texas

by Joanne Rock

I just had a cover reveal for my May book, THE PERFECT CATCH, book one in my upcoming Texas Playmakers series from Tule Publishing. That in itself is fun. The cover is gorgeous and the series is close to my heart with a sports hero I love and a heroine I rooted for. But it gets better.

Because THE PERFECT CATCH is part of an exciting new lineup from Tule authors. Ten authors are bringing ten original series set in a town we created together. Last Stand, Texas is a place we dreamed up on a trip to Hill Country last spring. Eve Gaddy kicks off the fun April 11th with her book, HEART OF THE TEXAS DOCTOR. After that, readers can pick up a new book set in Last Stand every week for months to come! It's going to be a blast.

So, what's to love about Last Stand? Think bluebonnets and bluebells, hot Texas summers and rodeo nights in a small town. Think fresh peaches and a festival at the Fourth of July where the Peach Queen and her court get to be a part of the parade. Farm stands and a fledgling winery side by side with an old monument to the heroes of Last Stand. You can read all about the way the local forces held Last Stand in Justine Davis's wonderful history over at the Tule Book Club group. Each Monday is devoted to Last Stand, so readers can get excited for what's coming.

But about THE PERFECT CATCH, my first Last Stand story. This is the romance of Cal Ramsey, the oldest of three baseball-playing brothers, who starts off his book getting DFA'd - Designated for Assignment-- by his major league team. Two weeks later, he clears waivers and finds himself with no team and no job, which sends him back home Last Stand. He's stinging from a rough go, and the last thing he expects is a sexy woman caretaker sleeping in his mom's house. Josie Vance isn't particularly thrilled to find a strange man standing in the glow of the open refrigerator door in the middle of the night either! But they pulled me into their story in no time, and now I can't wait to write all of the Ramsey men. My second book comes out in August, tentatively titled GAME ON.

If you love small town romances, or baseball player heroes, I hope you'll give this one a try! You can preorder THE PERFECT CATCH at books2read.com/perfectcatch

***So what do you love about small town life-- either one you've read about, one you live in, or one you've visited? Share with me this week and I'll send one random poster a digital copy of SECOND CHANCE COWBOY, another small town story that I love! 

Laura Drewry: Wish Lists

It’s my birthday next week and when my Oldest Darling asked me what I would like, I told him the truth: I would like Chinese food for dinner. But not just that. I'd like someone else to order it, someone else to either pick it up or answer the door when it arrives, someone else to set the table and I'd really like someone else to clean up afterwards.  

If you’re a parent, I bet you can relate, can’t you? We don’t need gifts, we don’t need big bouquets of flowers and we don’t need expensive dinners out. All we need is for someone else to take care of the cooking and cleaning for one day. :)

When I was a kid, though, my wish list was a little longer - and a whole lot stranger. We didn’t have many “extras” growing up, but Mom and Dad worked hard to make sure my three sisters and I never went without, and you can bet your boots that when one our birthdays came around, our folks knocked themselves out to give us the one thing we really wanted. I don’t honestly remember most of those things I “just had to have” back then, but I do remember a few because they were so weird.

One year it was my own jug of Hawaiian Punch because the girl down the street always had it in her fridge and I though she was one of the most exotic creatures in the world, so clearly that had to mean that I, too, would become exotic if I drank this entire jug full of high fructose corn syrup and sodium hexametaphosphate. Shockingly, I think the only thing I became was sick to my stomach, but that's a whole different story. Another year I just had to have my own bottle of maraschino cherries. I know, it makes me shudder to think of it now, too, but I'd been introduced to the wonder of the Shirley Temple, and what was a Shirley Temple without a cherry? And yes, if you're wondering, I ate every one of them.

Despite how it might seem up to this point, not everything was about food. :) One of my all-time favourite gifts was my Holly Hobby doll because it added to my belief that I must be related to the Ingalls family in my Little House books; I mean, I did, after all, share the same first name with the girl in the books and that had to mean something, right? 

I still have her, too, stored safely away in my trunk with Mrs. Beasley. 

I'd love to hear about some of your weird or wonderful birthdays. Do you have specific traditions, do have you have the same cake every year, or do you pretty much ignore the day all together? :) This year I'm extending my birthday fun an extra day because my new book, CATCH AND RELEASE (Book 3 in my Fishing for Trouble series) comes out on the 28th and I'm throwing an online party to celebrate, so I hope you'll join me. I have an amazing line up of guest authors who'll be there and I have it on good authority that there'll be prizes and giveaways, so come on over and be part of the fun!

   OFF THE HOOK                                         LURED IN                                           CATCH & 
                                                                                                                                       RELEASE
          (Book 1)                                                   (Book 2)                                               (Book 3)

Bringing Romance to Life

by Joanne Rock

I'm looking forward to a new release from Harlequin Superromance this Thursday. Dances Under the Harvest Moon is my third book in my Heartache, TN series, and writing this one brought me as much joy as the first two in the series. Some of that, I realized recently, had to do with the beautiful titles for these stories. Call me crazy... how can a title shape my whole experience writing an eighty-thousand word story? But for me, it really does. Allow me to explain.

My October release

I find it hard to work on a story without a title. It doesn't matter if it's not the title that goes on the cover in the end. I need a working title before I can begin a single word of a synopsis or chapter. While I certainly have book ideas that begin with characters, plot concepts, conflicts, or themes, I never really have a story take shape in my head until I've attached some kind of title to the idea. Only then does a book really start to grow for me.

With the first Heartache, TN book, I really felt from the start that I wasn't just creating a story. I was creating a world. It seemed important for a small town romance that I be intimately acquainted with the town. For me, that meant collecting photos, creating a map and sketching out some of the town's key figures. But the town itself wasn't the story world. That didn't really crystallize for me until we called this one Promises Under the Peach Tree.

Such an evocative title! Now the world wasn't just a place... it was a place with heart. A place I could breath in and feel the grass under my feet. Not only did Heartache become real for me, it became a place I enjoyed visiting each time I returned to the manuscript. I knew these people. They were friends.

With each return to Heartache, the titles have helped solidify moods and feelings. Nights Under the Tennessee Stars brought to mind drive in movies, midnight tailgating parties and drinks on the back porch. And this most recent story, Dances Under the Harvest Moon, well that just oozes romance! Hearing the title and seeing that book cover takes me to a romantic dance in the moonlight. Anyone else a fan of the Neil Young song Harvest Moon?

Like any romance reader knows, of course, a romance book is not just full of moonlit dances. We read romance to see how real characters combat the same kinds of conflicts we face in our lives, and to root for love to conquer all. But it makes me happy to give my characters those beautiful moments in the course of their journey that help make the battle for love all the more worthwhile. And in this book, a slow dance in the driveway helped remind me why this was a romance worth fighting for.

We all need our own moonlit dances, or nights under the stars or peach tree promises to get us through our own romances, I think. Those memories within our relationships pull us through real life battles and make us smile through hard times. It never hurts to think up your title-- to give yourself that memory or the lens through which to view your love-- and let it shape how you think about your romance. Our words mean so much. They shape how we think and articulate how we feel. Use yours kindly and christen your own romance with something to make you smile, too.

A giveaway for you!

***When you need a good, happy memory to make you smile, do you envision a shared romantic memory or a shared laugh? The times I love my husband the most are when he makes me smile at the moments when I'm discouraged. When he's at his best, he can tease a smile from my worst mood, and that's a special gift! Share with me this week and I'll give one random poster a little everyday romance to make YOU smile! A copy of Promises Under the Peach Tree and some decadent bath products to bring back the scent of warm summer days.