My family is full of cooks. We all love to bake and cook and try new recipes, get together and share our discoveries. On the holidays though, we trot out the family recipes. The ones that have been passed down for generations. No one would think–horrors upon horrors–of doing anything but the recipes we all know and love.

In our family, that means “Tess’s rolls” (my mom’s recipe that she’s made forever), that cranberry relish we all love, and a few years ago, in what was dubbed Anarchy Thanksgiving, I snuck in a new dish, Spicy Pearl Onions. It was … Read more »

I’ve known Niki Burnham for a long time. I’m not going to say how long–but its been long enough that I can call her one of my dearest friends and best writing buddies. We’ve spoken on panels, collaborated on goals, traveled abroad together, and she’s one of my fav friends to hit a baseball game with.

Niki is a solid, go-to friend who is also a dang good writer. While I miss her adult contemporaries (The Knight’s Kiss, anyone?), her YAs are awesome. Just ask all her teenaged fans who LOVE her books.

So while I could have … Read more »

So I’ve got a brand new round of Five Things in motion–lots of new authors dropping by on Thursdays to spill five things you might not know about them. I came up with the questions after I polled you all a while back and asked you: what questions would you ask future authors. You can find that post here.

And thus was born a brand spanking new list of questions that I send authors and ask them to answer five of them, their choice. What are the questions that I picked up from your comments and now ask them … Read more »

Last April at RT, I finally truly met Elizabeth Hoyt. She will tease me about this, but I know we had met before, but I had an actual chance to get to know her–mostly because I was pea-green with envy over the wonderful promo pieces she had done for her wonderful Maiden Lane series. (Which I gave away here all last spring!)

Probably because I fawned enough at RT, I was able, all these months later, to lure her over to my blog to let all of you know Five Things about Elizabeth Hoyt:

1) Did you have a nickname

When you go to a conference, in my case, The Surrey International Writers’ Conference, you never expect to arrive and have to undergo four security checks by RCMP just to get into the hotel, dodge past a couple hundred protesters, as well as having been pre-screened by the Secret Service.

Nothing like a friendly, “Welcome to Canada” arrival with the hotel surrounded by RCMP.

All because former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are speaking at the conference hotel that day for a separate economic meeting. And even with all this security you discover a few days later, … Read more »

If I were to describe my friend Gayle, I would say “she’s good people.” The sort of person you would never vote off the island. Funny, smart and down to earth, she’s someone that the more I get to know her, the more I discover we have in common! I hope you find some commonalities with her and check out her new book, Every Scandalous Secret.

1) Favorite indulgence: Chocolate Nutty Cone ice cream. Broken pieces of cone covered in chocolate all mixed inside. Need I say more?

2) First memory: the vacuum cleaner coming at me as my … Read more »

I met Blythe a little over a year ago at the RomCon conference and found her a delightful authorly companion to share a table with. And then I read her book and loved it, so it was only natural that I would want to share that table with all of you and let you get to know Blythe Gifford:

1) Favorite indulgence:  Miss Meringue Cappuccino Classiques.  My local
store no longer carries them so I order them shipped to me a carton of a dozen at a time. But they have no fat, so that makes total sense, right?… Read more »

Cool and hip are the best ways to describe Liza Palmer. And funny. Good gracious, this woman is funny. Depends sort of funny. But most of all, I just love her honesty. It is such a breath of fresh air. Minus the blue cheese.

Without further ado, my friend, Liza Palmer:

1) Most played song on my iPod: At 498 times, The Healing off the Lady in the Water soundtrack. I listened to this back to back to back to back to back when writing A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents. Never has a book called for the … Read more »

For the past four months, I’ve been devoting my Thursday blogs to asking some of my favorite authors and good friends to give up five things about themselves that you might not know. I thought it would be a fun and unique way to introduce new authors to all of you.

This is how it works: I email a bunch of victims, er, good friends, acquaintances, authors I’ve read and enjoyed, and ask them to pick five questions out of a list of 10 (or to make up their own) and share the five things they think is interesting or … Read more »

I met Elisabeth Naughton a few years ago at an author dinner that was great fun. She made a comment about someone’s age being “really old.” It happened to be how old I was at the time–much to her embarrassment. I have teased her mercilessly since and in the interest of putting that slight behind us (no, not really, I will tease her as long as my old age and failing memory allows me) I wanted to introduce her to you. Besides, she writes great books.

1) Favorite indulgence: Not sure I can post the answer to this without getting … Read more »