Destination Life: Home for Christmas

Today marks my last Destination Life. I hope you have enjoyed the columns. For the last one, I want to talk about that special place – being home for Christmas. And sometimes you can only be in your dreams.

My Christmas wanderings started when I was 19 and we went to Spartanburg SC for Christmas rather than being in San Francisco. I was with family but the traditions were different, and I was also busy being a debutante. My Season was a lot of fun and ultimately turned out to be life changing. (And I did acquire a boyfriend who turned out not to be Safe in a Carriage but that is another story...filed under Boyfriend Mistakes) The next year, I spent in Innsbruck on my own at a youth hostel with a collection of other travellers from the US, Canada and Australia. There is a certain bond that develops between travellers at Christmas. We knew we were all away and the customs were different. The living crèche and the fact that everything was closed for about sticks in my memory. We all gathered around the upstairs kitchen and sang Christmas carols.

The next year, I spent with my future husband and his parents and I can remember thinking that it really wasn’t the same! That year Christmas was important but I wasn’t home. The sideboard loaded with all sorts of different alcohol that no one drank was something that puzzled. I did enjoy tucking into all the different types of sweets. And then there was the Queen's speech. The one bright spot was that my husband believes as I do that you get up early on Christmas morning! We have spent every Christmas since then together and gradually being in the UK for Christmas has come to seem like being home. A Dutch friend of mine and I used to have conversations though about the British Christmas and in particular their lack of keepsake ornaments...
When the children were younger, we used to go home to the US for Christmas and I could indulge in my love of keepsake ornaments. It also meant that I could introduce my children to the absolute joy that is the San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker and they were able to meet the US version of Santa Claus, rather than the tradition Father Christmas in a bishop's robes. When my mother and sister finally moved to Washington DC, we spent a couple of Christmases there as well and Washington DC rapidly became home for the holidays. One tradition my sister has kept from that time is celebrating New Years on English time rather than American. It means that the children can have fun, but still get into bed at a reasonable time. But I always felt home was where the heart was.




This year, we have a spilt family. My eldest will be in Washington with my mother as he is on his Junior Year Abroad (and loving it) while we remain in Northumberland. So Christmas will be different.


And where you are, I hope that you can be home for Christmas if only in your dreams. May all your destinations in the comming year be joyous.

PHS editor Michelle Styles will return PHS with a new column  -- refilling the well and combating wrtier's block in the new year. You can learn more about her books on http://www.michellestyles.co.uk/

Male on Monday :: First Loves

Ally Blake talks about her first loves. Or more specifically the eye-candy who inspired her first ever Harlequin Romance and her first ever Modern Heat, both of which are serendipitously about to get bright and shiny relaunches next month!

First loves. Sigh... Right?

That first glance, the first smile, the first touch, the first bolt of electricity, the first time you see the same intrigue and attraction in his eyes that you feel zooming through you. That's what I love most about writing romance novels. Getting to experience those moments again and again with every book I write, and every book I read. Well, that and the fact that I get to google gorgeous guys and can call it work-related research!

And that brings me to my pair of Male on Monday men. The guys behind the heroes. The heavenly bodies who inspired me in some way in the writing of my first loves - my first Harlequin Romance, and my first ever Modern Heat - both of whom slid happily, blissfuly and warmly back into my mind when I discovered they were getting re-released with two weeks of one another next month.

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS and THE WEDDING WISH both hold huuuuge places in my heart and for good reason. They were the times when I first found myself in my writing. When I let go of everything I'd ever heard or read of thought and just let my voice shine. And isn't that what all great first loves should do?

From the very beginning of my writing career I cast my heroes. Probably comes from my screenwriting abckground when I always wrote parts for someone in particular in the hopes they'd one day be in my movies!

My first hero in my first book - THE WEDDING WISH - was written with the lovely Chris Noth in mind. In fact he was one of my first Male on Monday highlights back when PHS first began. I loved him in Law and Order, was and forever am Team Big, and even adore him enough to be able to handle him on The Good Wife even though in that case I don't trust the guy one bit!!!

As Jacob Lincoln he was my first published love. He gave me my first cute meet, a classic - they bang into one another on the street and her papers going flying. My first first date - a blind date that starts horribly wrong. My first heroic realisation that he was a gonners. My first experience of a man's man breaking out from behind the long-held bastion to declare his undying love.

Best of all he gave me my book first kiss. I can still see the mist on the driveway, the swoosh of faraway traffic, and taste the cognac on his lips. Mmmm. Here's a little taste just for you:

Jacob leant over and placed a light kiss on her open mouth succeeding in shutting her up. His hands remained in his pockets and her hands held her gloves in front of her at chest height. And since his toes were a couple of feet from hers, the only points of contact were their four, warm, amenable lips.

It took the merest moment for the unexpected tenderness of his kiss to wash its magic over her. On impulse Holly closed her eyes and tilted her head only ever so slightly. But it was enough.

Jacob took her hint and he leant that little bit closer to explore the warmth and thrill as unexpected yearning lit between them. And what started as little more than an overly friendly goodnight peck deepened into something very different. It was delicate. It was yielding. It was lovely.

Yeah. The guy wears a suit, and a flirtatious line, so very very well. I get all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it.

Though when I think about my first Modern Heat - GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS - my mind goes straight to the hero, Flynn Granger, I feel less warm and fuzzy and more hot and tingly. I'm thinking now that while Jacob was my first love, Flynn my first red-hot love affair ;).

Flynn was the man who took me from sweet and light to hot and heavy. And he did so by way of the delicious Jeremy Northam.

Jeremy Northam has that lazy laid-back charm that gets me each and every time. No time more than as a beautifully repressed Englishman in The Winslow Boy. The moments when you see the man beneath the suit - the warmth, the humour, the heat - are breathtaking.

Flynn gave me my first sex against a wall, on a bear skin rug and more wild and wonderful places than I'd ever gone before! No wonder my love for Flynn took my breath away just the same:

‘Do you want to come inside?’ The words left Abbey’s mouth before she had conjured them in her mind. It was too late before she remembered that the done thing was to finish that sentence with the words ‘for coffee’.

‘I want to come inside,’ Flynn said, his deep voice rumbling through her and she knew that he wasn’t after coffee any more than she was contemplating offering it.

Abbey took three steps inside on completely numb feet. All the blood in her body had rushed... Not to her head, it felt light as a balloon. Not to her hands, for they were suddenly so cold they almost hurt. And not to her lungs, as they felt so tight she could scarce draw breath.

She turned to check that Flynn had followed and found his large form filling her doorway. Moonlight spilled through the trellis backlighting him, but his face was in darkness. He slowly closed the door behind him, and as the moonlight slid away, she caught a light in his eyes. A gleam. A need so strong it lit him from within.

Picture me tilting my hat to the two gorgeous men who let me be who I needed to be in order to write my two breakthrough novels. I love you both. Maybe even more now. With time. And distance. And no memory at all of how stubborn you both likely were to wrangle onto the page!!

Kisses,
Ally
xXx

THE WEDDING WISH comes out next month in a collection entitled Blind Dates and Other Disasters. The collection in which GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS will appear is called Boardroom Hot-Shots: Real Men Collection.

Pre-order both NOW at THE BOOK DEPOSITORY and get 25% off the cover price AND free delivery everywhere in the world! You can find out heaps more about both books at Ally's website.

Wild Card Weekend - Lyn Cote

Oooh, just what we need here at the PHS on a cold early December Saturday!  Please welcome Lyn Cote with a great comfort food recipe!

Lyn Cote here-I live in the northwoods of Wisconsin in a cottage on a lake. The ice has covered the narrow channel outside my window and is working its way over the larger bays of the lake. When the ice appears, I think comfort food. Here's my family's favorite recipe. Hope you like it too.

Lyn Cote's Baked Macaroni

I adapted this recipe from my 1940 Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. I've cut the fat content from the original and changed to whole wheat macaroni to up the fiber. So you can indulge with this recipe, knowing that it's healthy!

1 lb. whole wheat macaroni

****
White sauce:

6 Tb butter or margarine

¾ c. flour

5 c. skim milk

¾ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

*****

1 lb grated cheddar cheese

1 c. bread crumbs

Cook macaroni, drain and put into greased, deep casserole dish or bowl. Make the white sauce and take pan off heat (to keep the cheese from becoming stringy). Add 2/3rd's of the grated cheese. Stir till melted. Pour over macaroni. Sprinkle remaining cheese and bread crumbs over top. Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes. May serve as side dish or main course.

Drop by http://www.lyncote.com/  or http://strongwomenbravestories.blogspot.com/  to learn more about Lyn Cote's literary concoctions!

BTW, my latest Love Inspired Historical romance, Her Healing Ways, comes out this week. I think it's one of the best stories I've written. Here's the blurb:

Unconventional. Unafraid. Unwelcome. A female physician with an adopted black daughter? The townsfolk of Idaho Bend will never accept Dr. Mercy Gabriel—even when faced with a deadly cholera epidemic. But all Mercy needs is one man willing to listen…and to trust.


Four years of war command turned Lon Mackey into a footloose gambler who can't abide attachments. Yet he can't help getting riled by the threats Mercy keeps receiving. Her trailblazing courage could reignite his faith and humanity. And his loyalty could make her dream—for the first time—of a family of her own….

This book is the final in my "Gabriel Sisters" series about three Quaker sisters: In the wake of the Civil War, three women combat injustice and find true love

Hope you'll remember it when buying Christmas presents. It's a story appropriate for a teen and great-grandmother and all the ages in between. Hope you have a lovely holiday season!—Lyn Cote

Must-Watch Friday - Trashy TV

We all have out guilty pleasures. Today Fiona Harper confesses to those that involve being draped over the sofa with a glass of white wine and some chocolate.


We've all watched them, haven't we? Reality shows and soap operas, talent contests and bad movies, but now and again a girl needs her trashy telly, and I have a theory as to why:

Recently, I watched a DVD of a marriage seminar by Mark Gungor, and he had some interesting (and very funny) things to say about men's brains and women's brains and the different ways they work. You can have a peek, if you like:

Apparently, men think in compartments. Their brains are made up of boxes, all containing just one subject, and when they want to discuss a subject, they take the box out, talk only about what is in that box, and then they carefully put it back, before they take out the next one.

Now, this may not come as a surprise to those of you who are married, but men also have a box with nothing in it. When they need to unwind, they retreat into that box. Ever seen a man flick mindlessly through the TV channels, never stopping on anything for more than a few seconds, a blank look on his face? Yep. He's in his nothing box. It's his way of unwinding.

Us girls are wired completely differently! Our brain is more like a big ball of wire. Everything is connected to everything. We like thinking about how things are related to each other. And this is where I think so-called "trashy" TV comes in.

Personally, I have a few reality shows I really enjoy. I tend to like the ones where people are competing for something or learning new skills. I like to see who surprises me, who disappoints me, who falls apart at the first hurdle and who digs deep and shows inner grit. Most of all I like watching the contestants relate to each other. I get involved in their battles and shout back at the TV. I cheer them on when they do well and sniff when my favourites fail.

I like giving my opinions and setting the world to rights as I watch my trashy TV. I'm watching relationships - but they're not my relationships, so that makes them non-draining. I'm watching drama and conflict - but it's not my drama and conflict, and sometimes it's nice to stand back from an objective distance and work out the solutions for other people rather than struggle to find my own.

Every day life can often be draining and demanding, but at the end of one of my trashy TV shows, I can turn the TV off and walk away, a sense of peace and well-being at having put the world to rights - at least the little square world that lives in the corner of my sitting room.

Fiona's award-winning debut novel, Blind-Date Marriage, is being re-released as part of the anthology, Blind-Dates and Other Disasters, in the UK in January 2011!

All Serendipity Dove wants is a little normality in her unconventional life, and a nice husband to provide her with two-point-four children sounds like the perfect antidote! So she goes on a blind date and meets Jake, who ticks all the right boxes - especially the one labelled 'chemistry'. However, she's too busy falling in love to notice that, way down in the small print, the 'ready for commitment' box is glaringly empty...

THURSDAY TALK-TIME : Making A List And Checking It Twice by Lynne Marshall

Lynne Marshall is revising her holiday lists with Thursday Talk-time...

It’s that time of year again – time to make a list! Who can survive the holidays without those pesky reminders of what to do, where to be, what to buy, and which ingredients to use? Not me!

It begins around U.S. Thanksgiving. The ads appear, reminding me that Uncle Leo can’t live without that new aftershave, and Nana should get signed up for that service in case she falls. The sexy man in evening tux informs me that without that huge rock of a diamond, I’ll never know if my husband truly loves me or not, and the same for hubby if I overlook that ridiculously large flat screen TV.

Then the decorations pop up all over town. I frantically search for my note pad and begin to scribble down my plans. Get the tree-trimming boxes out of the attic, set up the Advent calendar, call so-and-so about the wreaths, say yes to that holiday luncheon, remember to drop by the Christmas boutique, buy holiday cards and don’t forget the tree, pick up dinner!

And speaking of dinner, the Christmas dinner list is long and daunting: Who to invite; what to serve – turkey or prime rib? Why not both? Side dishes 1-5. Desserts, at least two, why not three? Oh, jot this down – since it becomes first on the New Years list – find out how much it costs to join the gym!

Now, on to the “gifts for the family” list. Collect immediate and extended family sizes, favorite colors, likes and dislikes. If only I’d kept the list from last year! Try not to get confused about whether Emily likes knit scarves and Gina hates them, or is that vice versa? And if I ask either of them to clarify, they’ll know what I have in mind, which will take all the fun out of buying it for them. OK, make a list of who to ask to surreptitiously find out which is which. Have a back up list, in case I was dead wrong about who likes what. Make a techie list in the event no one wants traditional gifts this year. Buy all new wrapping paper! Start a list on potential part time jobs in 2011 to help pay for the Christmas shopping sprees.

Does any of this ring a bell for the rest of you? I thought it might. To offset this crazy time of year, maybe I should chuck all those other lists and start one more that begins:

1. Take time to smell the pine trees.

2. Enjoy the music of the season.

3. Be sure to tell the people I love how special they are.

4. Simple acts of kindness touch people’s hearts.

5. Spend more time with family and friends.

6. Visit someone who doesn’t have relatives nearby.

7. Remember the reason for the season.

8. Don’t forget it’s the little things that mean the most.

9. Slow down!

This one is a hangover from Thanksgiving

10. Don’t forget to be grateful for my many blessings.

Hey, here’s one last list I’d love you to help me make: A list of movies to watch this holiday season. I have a few in mind, but I’d love to add more. Share your top three Christmas-themed movies for a chance to win my current release – The Christmas Baby Bump.

And the last item on my list today is to wish you, one and all, a joyous holiday season! May you spend it in good health, surrounded by those you love.

Sincerely,

Lynne Marshall

WRITER'S WEDNESDAY: Finding the Twist by Tawny Weber

Tawny Weber joins Pink Heart Society to talk about twists and ties and how she built her latest Blaze...

One of the things I love most about this time of year is cuddling up on the couch with my girls, a roaring fire blazing and the TV tuned to one of our favorite holiday movies.

So when I was given a chance to write a Christmas novella for Blaze’s MUST HAVE BEEN THE MISTLETOE anthology, I wanted to tie in one of my favorite holiday stories. After much consideration (okay, so really it was only a few seconds because it’s the first idea that occurred to me and I giggled a lot) I decided to go with that poor, maligned outcast from Rudoph’s story –the Island of Misfit Toys. A BABE IN TOYLAND features Rita Mae Cole, a heroine in a cash crunch at the holidays. To make enough money to buy a special gift, she takes a gift from her roommate... a box of misfit toys she can sell at a discount. Sex toys, that is.

I think one of the most intriguing things writers do is take something they know, and give it the right twist to fit where they want to go. For me, because I write Blaze my stories need that sexy hook. And the hook had to tie in with the holiday, and provide a solid foundation for the story.

That’s the fun of twists, isn’t it? Finding a hook, a platform of sorts, to build the story around. I’ve talked to a number of authors who use fairy tale twists, such as Beauty and the Beast, The Ugly Duckling and Cinderella to weave through their story.

How about you? Do you have a favorite twist in books? If you write, what is the most recent hook you used? And as a reader, do you recognize a twist when you read it and does that appeal to you?

And how did my hook work? Here’s a little excerpt from A BABE IN TOYLAND:

“So what is it? A new toy?” Rita asked her roommate, peeking out the window.

Not that she was anxious or anything. Tyler Ramsey was a first-class jerk, albeit one helluva gorgeous first-class jerk. But gorgeous didn’t matter because he was just a means to an end. Plan C.

She pressed her hand to her belly to settle the dancing nerves. Just because he’d knocked her on her ass with those magic lips of his didn’t mean she was itching to see him again. She hadn’t even put makeup on, proof positive that she wasn’t looking to make an impression.

If he showed up, that was. Which he probably wouldn’t.

“More like toys,” Shawn said, pulling Rita’s attention back to the mystery box with a gesture to open it.

Rita tugged up the flaps, then frowned. She shook the box, staring at the colorful array of vibrators, cock-rings and god knew what else as they tumbled together. Mouth dragging the floor, she gave her roommate a shocked stare.

“What the...?”

Shawn poked her fingernail at a neon green rubber dildo. “They’re discontinued toys. Last year’s models, overstocks, a few rejects. There’s a product guide in there I printed with all their names, features, retail price. Should be all you need.”

Rita goggled, actually goggled. What the hell?

Her gaze bounced from Shawn’s sleepy face to the box of misfit sex toys. “I’m out of a job, homeless and heading to my parents’ for some holiday humiliation. And you’re giving me... the promise of satisfaction?” She glanced at the tightly packed box again and added, “Over and over again?”

Shawn smirked. “If that’s how you want it, sure. I figured you could, you know, sell them. Like they do at those toy parties and stuff? These are free and clear,” she assured Rita. Shawn owned an adult bookstore and while she was a strong supporter of all things kink, she’d never do anything illegal.

“Look, if you won’t take it as a present, take it as an apology.” Shawn stuffed her hands in her robe pockets and hunched her shoulders. “I hate that I can’t hold the room for you. It’s bad enough you’re out a job, but...”

“You need to make rent,” Rita dismissed, not wanting to add to Shawn’s guilt. “And I appreciate the idea, I really do—”

“Don’t refuse,” Shawn interrupted. “Just, you know, think about it. If you decide the idea sucks, you can dump the boxes on the side of the road.”

Rita snickered, not sure which amused her more. The image of some random traveler finding a box of neon dildos. Or the idea of heading home with the hunkiest man she’d ever lusted after, carrying her own arsenal of sex toys.

Tawny Weber is usually found dreaming up stories in her California home, surrounded by dogs, cats and kids. When she’s not writing hot, spicy stories for Harlequin Blaze, she’s shopping for the perfect pair of boots or drooling over Johnny Depp pictures (when her husband isn’t looking, of course). In December 2010, her ninth Blaze, A BABE IN TOYLAND hits the bookshelves. Come by and visit her on the web at www.tawnyweber.com