Special Releases: An Italian Summer

One of the very neat things is writing and reading special projects. This summer, two Romance authors join Kate Hewitt in an anthology entitled AN ITALIAN SUMMER. Here are Jackie Braun and Rebecca Winters to tell you a bit about their stories!

Rebecca: My inclusion in this June anthology is a new novella called THE LUCCHESI BRIDE. It's the story of a darling redhead named Catherine Dalton who finds out her birthfather Mario Conti is alive and living in Italy. She's a western girl from the US and flies over to Italy to meet him. In the process she encounters the hero Alessandro Luchessi who is a business friend of her father's... and it's love at first sight for both of them.

Alessandro has a teenaged son who isn't too thrilled to discover his father has a love interest after all these years. And to add to the mix, Mario's daughter through another marriage is insanely jealous of her American half sister who has won Alessandro's heart. To make things even tougher, Catherine is feeling guilty to have left her stepfather (since her mother's passing). She loves him and doesn't want him to feel betrayed because she has gone to meet her birthfather. Lots and Lots and lots of angst!

Jackie: A VENETIAN AFFAIR originally appeared in Destination: Marriage, an anthology out last June that featured, as the main title implies, destination weddings. I had a ball writing this story, and I still have a bit of a crush on Maxwell Kinnick, the story's flirtatious, confirmed bachelor. I paired him with Dayle Alexander. She's his business partner and seemingly the only woman alive immune to his considerable charm. Dayle has good reason to be immune. She made the mistake of falling for one Lothario. She's vowed never to do so again, which is why it makes sense to accept the proposal of her long-time, uber-reliable beau. So what if she doesn't experience sparks when they're together? She had those once and only wound up burned.

When work takes Max to Venice and Dayle tags along to scout out wedding locations, the long-simmering attraction they've both denied can no longer be ignored. But is it more than attraction? And just what is Max hiding behind all of that charm? When Dayle learns the answers, she's left with an even bigger question: Venice is the perfect location for her wedding, but who is her perfect groom?

Don't they sound like LOVELY stories? You can find the book for sale at Mills and Boon, and at amazon.

Jackie Braun - Deadlines, Sleep and Starvation!

Marrying the Manhattan Millionaire is my 14th Harlequin Romance and my 18th book published through Harlequin Enterprises.

I wish I could say the process has gotten easier with each book I’ve written, but it hasn’t. I still struggle with my characters, the plot, pacing, you name it, every single time.

Don’t tell my talented and endlessly patient editor this, but I’m still not sure I know what I’m doing.

My husband, an engineer by trade, recently asked me why I always start working evenings and weekends in a frantic push to finish a book when my deadline begins to loom.

To his very logical mind I should be able to set a page count per day, hit that number in my allotted time, and have things wrapped up before my quiet home office is invaded by a pair of energetic boys in the afternoon.

Ah, if only it were that simple for me.

Some days I have been known to turn out more than a dozen in record time. On others, I can spend hours to eke out a few pages that will require major revisions.

I adore my husband and was only marginally offended by his question. After all, hunger probably motivated it. See, the closer I get to deadline, the more likely it is my family will be eating cold cereal for dinner. (During a recent deadline we actually ran out of cereal, milk and clean bowls and spoons.)

While writing this book, however, I recall cooking my share of decent meals at crunch time. In fact, making meals didn’t prove to be as big an issue for me as getting sleep, especially at the start.

During the proposal stage, I sent my editor an idea that didn’t quite fly. I planned to revise it, but then, in the wee hours of the night, I awoke with a totally new story in mind. I hopped out of bed and jotted down notes.

That story became Marrying the Manhattan Millionaire.

I may not know what I’m doing, but when it comes to my priorities this much I’ve figured out: My love of story-telling will outrank making meals and getting the doctor-recommended eight hours of shut-eye every time.

Spotlight in Six with....Jackie Braun!

This month's spotlight features Jackie Braun, author of Found: Her Long Lost Husband. Let's get right to the questions, shall we????


After writing so many books, where do you find new and fresh ideas?
I’m currently working on books 16 and 17 and, honestly, I have no ideas where my stories come from. It’s one of the great mysteries. Ideas just pop into my head, usually when I don’t have a pen handy or access to a computer. Often, I get the idea for a character first and then find myself fleshing out his/her life and what challenges he/she might face, etc.

Writers often use photos of celebrities as “casting”. Do you do this, and who has inspired some of your characters?

Generally speaking, I don’t do this because then I start thinking of that celebrity’s speech patterns, mannerisms, etc. For my heroes I have been inspired by celebrities’ looks on occasion. I had a character with a Dennis Quaid grin and another with a Brad Pitt jaw, for example. I have loosely -- and I mean very loosely -- based a couple of female characters on celebrities. I started thinking about how people think they “know” these celebrities. What if these people were misunderstood and not at all like what the public perceived? How hard would it be to live down an image under those circumstances? Tempest Herriman, my heroine in the novella “Sex, Lies and a Security Tape” in the book titled EXCLUSIVE! is a Paris Hilton-type, or so she seems. Perception is one of the issues the hero has to overcome for their relationship to work. Likewise, Audra Conlan in A WOMAN WORTH LOVING, the first book in my Conlans of Trillium Island trilogy, is a wannabe actress who had been married to a much older wealthy man who dies and leaves her everything. In the opening scene she’s being strangled nearly to death by her stepson, who is upset about losing his inheritance. Anna Nicole Smith was sued by her late husband’s son rather than nearly killed, but her story (before her tragic death) was a bit of an inspiration for me. Audra was so flawed, so damaged. I wanted to explore how someone like her could rise above her very public past, heal and find redemption.

What are your favourite and least favourite parts of writing a novel? Is there a particular section that you struggle with?

Are you kidding? I struggle with the beginning, the middle and the end of each book! But I absolutely love it when my characters surprise me. When they take off in a direction I didn’t anticipate and I’m forced to scurry after them, those days are wonderful, exhilarating. The worst days are those when I can spend an entire morning at a computer and my characters refuse to come to life. They remain words on paper rather than interesting individuals with conflicts and quirks I want to explore.


When you are not writing, what do you do? How do you pamper yourself?
When I’m not writing fiction, I’m often doing freelance or reviewing children’s books for local newspapers. I’m also a mom. I have a seven-year-old son (and a toddler on the way via international adoption), so I’m busy around the house. I like to putter in my flowerbeds and take bubble baths. I just got some new lavender-scented bath stuff that promises relaxation. Sounds good to me!

Imagine you’re stranded…where are you and who are you with?

Stranded, eh? Hmm, it would have to be with my hubby. He’s the only one I’d wanted to be stranded anywhere with. He’s a pretty smart and resourceful guy. Sexy, too. We spent our honeymoon in Aruba way back when and had a ball lying on the beach and doing next to nothing, so a Caribbean island holds appeal. But can we be stranded in a luxury resort with room service? Now, that’s a fantasy.

Finally, Jackie, please tell us what’s up and coming for you in the months ahead!

Well, I have the last book in the Secrets We Keep trilogy, out in October. It’s titled FOUND: HER LONG-LOST HUSBAND. Liz Fielding wrote the first book, REUNITED: MARRIAGE IN A MILLION, which came out in August. Barbara Hannay’s NEEDED: HER MR. RIGHT was the second book and it came out in September. It was a thrill to work with Liz and Barbara. They are both gifted and generous writers. To recap briefly, our three heroines meet during a charity bike ride through the Himalayas and wind up sharing their secrets, things that have held them back from being happy and fulfilled. In my character’s case, she married young in an attempt to get out from underneath her father’s thumb. The marriage crumbled quickly as a result of secrets and lies, but in addition to feeling guilty about using Ethan Seaver, Claire’s always secretly wondered … what if?

I also have MOONLIGHT AND ROSES coming in January. When wealthy California vintner Zack Holland buys the vineyard Jaye Monroe helped her late father start, she never imagines she’ll also lose her heart to him. EXPECTING A MIRACLE is due out in April. Pregnant and alone, Lauren Seville is looking for peace in the Connecticut countryside. She finds much more than that when she meets Gavin O’Donnell.

Thanks Jackie for being here with us!