What does beauty mean to you?

Beauty means many things to many people: a soft, pink morning sky tinged by the rising sun, a rugged man holding his tiny daughter in his arms as he looks down at her with love in his expression…a perfect flower whose fragrance entrances.

One definition of beauty is “the combination of qualities that make something pleasing and impressive to look at, listen to, touch, smell, or taste.”

Another definition of beauty is “an advantage, attraction, benefit, asset…”

But is it? We all love to look at beauty by whatever definition, but not all beauty is good. There’s a wild beauty in a deadly hurricane, and in a rattlesnake poised to strike. There’s treacherous beauty in a physically perfect human whose soul is more villainous than heroic, and sometimes fatally attractive beauty in a poisonous flower. “Gorgeous to look at, deadly to touch” can apply in many cases.

I see the greatest beauty, though, in a man whose love for his woman or his child shines through, or in a mother’s love for her newborn baby. Beauty also shows itself to me in a fragrant orchid or brilliant amaryllis, a beloved pet or an interesting plant or animal.

What represents beauty to you? Tell me, and I’ll pick a winner from those who comment. The prize is a download of my bestselling-ever contemporary erotic romance, A MUTUAL FAVOR, where I hope you’ll discover real beauty comes from love.

A Valentine's Day Dream Come True

Last month I posted about the too-often-true story of a romance gone bad. Now, with Valentine's Day upon us, I thought I'd pass along the story of the same broken-hearted lover two years later, happier than he'd dreamed he could be with the BFF of his childhood.

What is true love? He's learned it's not just hot sex and party time--not for long. He's suffered heartache and despair and come out wiser. He's rediscovered friendship and shared interests with the woman who's no longer a little neighbor girl...and together they've found their friendship has morphed into something more. After a lot of soul-searching he's realized he'd trust her with his life, after going through a time when the only woman he could trust was his own mother. He's discovered the best kind of passion grows from friendship and trust, where before he'd been ruled by mindless lust.

So...it's the day before Valentine's Day and he has a ring in his pocket. The spicy-sweet smell of two dozen American Beauty roses surrounds him as he stands at his best friend's door, vase in hand. His pulse accelerates when she appears, her smile welcoming him and her eyes twinkling with anticipation. He wonders how could he ever have thought of this gorgeous creature as his buddy--practically another sister?

He makes a living by persuading others but suddenly he's at a loss for words. He thrusts the vase of roses at her. "Here. The florist said these signify love and passion."

"You shouldn't have, but I love them. Come on in," she says, accepting the flowers.

Are those tears he sees welling up in her eyes? She's never looked so beautiful, and he's never loved another woman one tenth as much. She sets the roses on the table and sits beside him on the couch. A tear rolls down her cheek, and strangely that gives him courage.

"Happy Valentine's Day, sweetheart." Dare he say it? The words hadn't escaped his lips for so long, and so many hurts had followed that first commitment. He had to. "I love you."

"I love you, too." She laughed as though she didn't want to put more importance on the word. "We've loved each other since we were five years old, haven't we?"

"Yeah. But not always the way I love you now. My little guy loves you, too." In for a penny, in for a pound. "I want you to marry me." Taking her hand, he reached in his pocket, brought out the ring and slid it on her finger. "Please."

Would she ever say yes and put him out of his misery? For the longest time she just stared at her hand, seemingly mesmerized by the flash of the heart-shaped diamond he'd picked out just for her. "Oh, yes." She broke into a dazzling smile. "Did you know I've been in love with you for as long as I can remember?"

He let out the breath he'd been holding and took her in his arms. "I may not always have been very smart, but I finally wised up. You're the woman I've always wanted. I'm just sorry it took me so long to realize it."

And so, the two lived happily ever after, after all, and his little boy found a stable home full of love and laughter! Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.

For a heartwarming reunion Quickie set around the lovers' holiday, check out my latest, IRRESISTIBLE...AGAIN, available now from Ellora's Cave, Amazon.com, or ARebooks.

What makes a real HEA so elusive?

As a romance writer, I love the fantasy of happily ever after, or at least happily for now. Sometimes, though, it bothers me to see the stark reality of broken romances that began with all the hope in the world for a lifetime of love and commitment.

What's the culprit that puts so many relationships on the rocks? Is it modern society or human frailty, or vision at the beginning through starry eyes and rose-colored glasses that don't let the parties recognize potential problems?

Take this fictional, fractured relationship that's too much like ones that happen every day. Why did it go wrong? Was it that they were too young, too irresponsible? Were they in too much of a hurry to leap into a relationship before knowing each other well enough to form an accurate picture of what the future might bring?

There's a young man, hot for good sex but also for romance. He works hard, parties hard as well. He's stalled in a dead-end job by the sick economy--but he makes enough to enjoy the good life with his friends...and scope out chicks in upscale watering holes.

Add the chick--a hot looking babe with a body that won't stop and a taste for good times that meshes with the guy's. She works--not a career but a stopgap, as somebody else has always picked up the majority of her tabs. Recently dumped by another guy, she's living temporarily with family members--until her new guy asks her to share his place.

Fun, games and big plans for a future ensue. All is well--until she ends up pregnant. Big responsibility. Even bigger for the prospective dad who loves the chick enough to stick around but who handles the added stress by partying more than she's able to in her condition.

Add a much loved baby to mix. Chick wants to be a full time mom. Guy agrees, even though he realizes the financial strain is going to intensify. He begins noticing the chick isn't much of a housekeeper, which bugs him since he has practically doubled his hours at work to pay bills, many of which are ones she had before they met. She hates the time he spends unwinding with coworkers. He resents the money she spends, shopping and making long trips in a car that's not exactly roadworthy.

Boom! That car--hers before they met, with a huge, high-interest note--breaks down again and again, making the financial situation worse. They break up and she runs back to former boyfriend/meal ticket halfway across the country, taking baby. He follows, having no choice but to move or lose contact with his child. Nobody is particularly happy.

What could have made this romance resolve itself happily? The failure may have had something to do with both parties equating hot sex and fun partying with friendship and compatibility, don't you think? I do. This is partly a sign of the times, I guess, but I think it's more a guy thinking he'd found his fantasy lover and a chick jumping on what she thought was a better meal ticket than the one who'd just dumped her.

As I see it, both fictional parties jumped into a relationship without knowing each other beyond the superficial--a relationship between strangers that's more often than not doomed to failure.

Check next month for the antithesis to this story, the way a good fictional friend who has known the fictional guy since childhood gives them a much better chance for a real HEA ending--and check out my current Ellora's Cave Quickie, MUTUAL FANTASY, for a contemporary erotic romance that will warm your heart as well as heating your blood!

A Tale of Two Blue Cats

Happy Holidays!

This year I'm celebrating the friendship of these two gorgeous but very different purebred "blue" cats that are sharing our home.

Some of you may have seen my Blue before. He's my baby...a delicate looking Russian Blue who's the undisputed king of the house. Seven years old this year, he's been an only cat for five of those years.

Now, though, he has a partner in crime. LoverDog (LD for short) is a huge nine year old Chartreaux my human baby brought with him when he moved back home last month. Bounced around in recent years from one home to another, LD endured an airline journey stuffed into a crate that fits under plane seats with his human--this one who has vowed they'll be together as long as they both survive.

Mind you, LD outweighs Blue by more than ten pounds. For the first week or so, Blue was intimidated by all that bulk, taking refuge under the covers of my bed for long, solitary naps. Little by little, though, curiosity got the better of him and he started slithering out, looking and hissing at his new best friend. LD took it all in stride.

Soon they were sniffing and chasing each other, the best of buds who now share two separate litter boxes as well as each other's food and treats. They're enjoying the "cat company", or at least it seems they are...and we're all enjoying our two blue babies as we get ready to celebrate the holidays together.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza or whatever day is special to you...and a wonderful, prosperous 2012!

Conceiving a series...and building a world

Sometimes a contemporary story world just happens. Other times it's inspired by a picture...a sense of place...a group of beloved characters. Courthouse Connection, my next planned series of erotic contemporary romances, draws from inspirations by all three of these factors.

A mental picture, of a courtroom in Tampa, Florida, of prosecutors and defense teams, defendants, witnesses and judges, sets the backdrop for me to move on, consider the surrounding countryside and its people. This part was easy, because I decided up front to spin this series off Lawyers in Love, one of my first series efforts for Ellora's Cave. (Voila! Not only do I have my visuals and sense of place, but I also have some well-developed secondary characters who starred in books in the previous series.)

I begin building my new series based on the sense of place I've developed and the already-made secondary characters who will bring color to the new series which, by the way, will go in an entirely different direction than its predecessor. My next step is to decide on a particular situation that will not only lend itself to an erotic romance story but also deliver a situation that will bring
unlikely lovers together.

Then, with a very sketchy framework in mind, I begin creating characters, the most important pieces of any erotic romance. One major character in each book must have a tight connection to the court, while the other (others if I'm writing a menage) needs to have a problem that's likely to have them dragged into court.

In FRAMED, the first of the series, the hero is a private investigator--a former cop who works for the law firm the heroine has hired to defend her on a charge of murdering her powerful husband. Not convinced at first that she is innocent, he tries to ignore the chemistry that has sizzled between them from the beginning.

TAMED pits a BDSM club owner and her submissive male partner against a state attorney determined to use the prosecution of them as a springboard to higher office. The hero defends them and is drawn into a BDSM menage that will shock his blue-blooded family.

The next book, SHAMED, brings together a betrayed wife with an ex-Navy Seal detective hired by her attorney to dig into her husband's underhanded dealings. At stake is the bar/cafe near the courthouse that the heroine has poured years of sweat and tears into--her livelihood.

REDEEMED--that's the way this hero feels. An upcoming attorney now, he has experienced the other side and clawed his way back. When he marries his childhood sweetheart, they're both on top of the world until a ghost from his past rears its head and threatens their marriage and his sanity.

By the time these books are written, a lot of the details now in my mind will change--they always do, because I tend to write by the seat of my pants instead of following detailed outlines. The series framework, though, will give me enough guidance that I can hopefully keep the series coherent, while each book will stand on its own.

Romance...the fantasy vs. realities

As a genre, the word romance conjures happily ever after (or at least happy for now). In real life it’s too often not that way. Enjoy the fantasy in my new Quickie, MUTUAL FANTASY, available now from Ellora's Cave, Amazon.com and most online booksellers.

I'm thinking that many of us are searching for the happily ever after fantasy to come alive in our real lives, and when it doesn’t we're too quick to discard what could be a satisfying, lasting relationship. Observing a good many young couples' romances has left me with the impression that they often begin relationships too easily, before they truly know their lovers—and I don’t only mean how well he performs in the sack compared with her former lovers, or how hot she looks in a bikini.

Traits they thought were fun and cool at first tarnish in the bright light of everyday sharing. While she loved partying with him at first, she now views his affinity for sports bars as taking something away from their relationship—unless he happens to be doing all that partying with her. He didn’t worry about her lack of homemaking skills—until he woke up facing filth, clutter and dirty clothes day in and day out.

This alone dooms a lot of romances, but let's go further. Ratchet up the responsibility with a baby before they’re ready financially (and maybe emotionally as well) for the added responsibility. They decide after baby is born that she should stay home a while, which adds to the financial stress since he now must pay her hefty debts on an income he has to stretch by working longer hours at the job he hates. She isn’t used to sitting home and isn’t interested in staring at the four walls, so she takes the baby and fritters money away by shopping, meeting friends for lunch and so on. She wants him to join the Air Force as an enlisted man, but as a college graduate, he's holding out for an officer's commission.

Meanwhile he keeps working and going to graduate school. He hates coming home without unwinding from long days on the job, so he stops by a bar with coworkers and has a few drinks. She gets furious, which only makes him less anxious to come home other than to play with the baby with whom he has bonded. She'd probably never admit it, but she’s jealous that he apparently loves the baby more than he does her.

She takes a long trip with baby--without discussing it with him. Car breaks down and incurs a huge bill while away. He starts fuming because that car was hers before they met and she's upside down in it--owes thousands more than it's worth in trade. She comes back. Car breaks down yet again. Things are getting worse. Finances are stretched as tight as a small condom on a large cock. He demands she get a job. She refuses and throws his drinking in his face--again.

By this time she has stopped caring for him and thinks longingly of an old boyfriend, contacts him, decides he may be a better bet even though he’s still married to somebody else. She takes baby and walks out, leaving him with nothing but debt he incurred trying to support her, and an apartment full of memories he cannot face.

Their fantasy romance is over. She’s bloodsucking off yet another meal ticket. He's trying to get his life together while maintaining a relationship with his baby that requires him to maintain often painful contact with her.

This account is fiction, a composite of many broken romances I've observed over the years, not any particular one. I certainly like stories like MUTUAL FANTASY much better! My hope is that all of us will eventually find our real "Happily Ever Afters"--or at least "Contented Ever Afters"--in spite of life's sometimes bleak realities.