Dot Frank GuestBlog: You Might be a Beach Read If...

Posted by Michelle Buonfiglio 05/09/08 7:27am GMT

From Michelle: I want to be Dorothea Benton Frank's new best friend. First, Buzzy Porter, one of my fave p.r. guys, says she's one of his fave peeps. And second, she writes strong female leads and, instead of titillating readers with lots of groping characters, writes "one preposterous sex scene per book." The one she's created for her new read, "Bulls Island" is a gem. Please welcome Dot - who sets her novels in the South Carolina Locountry -- with your warmest Southern Belle-a buongiorno...

From Dot: You Might be a Beach Read If...

If what? Beach Read, indeed. What does that mean? Well, I'm thinking this . . . the books we buy for ourselves, all of them, have a responsibility to satisfy. But what exactly are fair expectations of the much maligned, underestimated literary values of the brazen summer reads? How does the reader identify one when foraging through the local bookstore? And how should we regard them, that is, in terms of our respect for the work? Good questions - ones I ask all the time.

To begin, we have to locate them among the hundreds of thousands of titles out there. Okay, if there is an ocean in the background of the cover, it's a pretty safe bet the story in the pages is not going to make your brain explode. And, chances are, it's a Beach Read. If there are beach chairs, sandals, shells, hammocks, sand dunes, sunsets and/or female figures running along the shore smiling as though they have won the lottery, your odds of finding a Beach Read have increased mightily. (My new book, BULLS ISLAND features a gorgeous beach scene with striped umbrellas - all that blue!)

Expectations? It's got to have a gripping plot, good pace and topics and ideas that are fresh. The story has to be populated by characters you love and ones you love to hate. They have to use dialogue that sounds like real people are speaking - science fiction, gooey romance and mythology aside. And, you should learn something - the take away value element. But most of all, you should be entertained. Entertained! Now, there's a concept.

Perceptions? Well, color me sunburned, but I think it's a noble cause to entertain, amuse and inform someone in today's world. We all work like demons and our reading time is precious. Do all of my books accomplish these goals? Perhaps some do a better job than others but I surely try my best. BULLS ISLAND, my ninth novel, is no exception.

Visit Dot at DotFrank.com!

Brenda Novak GuestBlog: A Mom's Love -- Annual Online Auction for Diabetes Research on Now at BrendaNovak.com!

Posted by Michelle Buonfiglio 05/08/08 1:34am GMT

From Michelle: With Mother's Day just around the corner, it's fun to meet a mom who celebrates her son Thad's living well with diabetes by raising money so others with the illness can live better, too. Today, the remarkable woman and talented author, Brenda Novak tells us about her Annual Online Auction, and how you can take part (and win cool items)! Please offer Brenda your warmest "You gotta be kidding that people would pay that much to have lunch with Michelle" Bella buongiorno...

From Brenda: Spring has arrived, and with it the fundraising season. American Idol Gives Back was just on. Most of the major charities are holding Galas, Walks and Golf Tournaments. And I'm launching my 4th Annual On-line Auction for Diabetes Research, which runs at www.brendanovak.com May 1 - May 31st. I know, as much as we all want to help, this "F" word (fundraising) is a little daunting because we have bills and obligations that need to come first.

But the good news is: I'm not asking for cash donations! I'm putting the 1200+ items I've collected over the past year up for bid, and many of these items are super cool and can't be found anywhere else. That means you can make a difference to my son and all the other people in the world who suffer from diabetes by SHOPPING. What could be more fun than that?

Think about it. We all buy books. Why not buy an advanced reading copy of your favorite author's next novel and have the chance to read it before anyone else? Or do your gift shopping for the coming year by purchasing something personal and unique for those on your Christmas list-like the opportunity to have your loved one's name used as a character in a book? Or the chance to have lunch with such Big Name authors as MaryJanice Davidson, Christine Feehan, Diana Gabaldon, Jayne Ann Krentz, Debbie Macomber, Ridley Pearson, and JR Ward?

There will be items to fit every budget from a drumhead signed by a whole slew of famous music artists (Michael Jackson, Ringo Starr, Bruce Springstein, and far too many others to list) to a treasure trove of miscellaneous items donated by aspiring author Lauren Hawkeye.

And that's not all. For those who are aspiring to become a novelist or to advance their writing career, there will be AMAZING opportunities. Many of the most powerful agents and editors in the business have donated evaluations-some with the promise of a 24-hour response (which is unheard of in the publishing industry). There will also be mentoring packages from NYTimes Bestselling authors, media training, web designs, publicity packages and, get this, lunch with Michelle!!!

How does it all work? Just like E-Bay. You register, you bid, you win what you want. When it's over, you pay with Paypal, credit card or personal check/money order. In most instances the donor even picks up the shipping. Can't get any better than that, right? Well, it does. The person who places the highest number of bids over all, even if that person doesn't win a single item, will receive a fabulous prize package including a brand new camcorder (worth over $1,000), Your Name in My Next Book, an autographed copy of my new novel TRUST ME (released May 27th), and chocolate (lots of chocolate!).

Check out the auction at www.brendanovak.com, and while you're at my Web site, enter to win a spectacular trip to Port Orchard and Bainbridge Island (sponsored by Allison Brennan, Debbie Macomber, Susan Wiggs and myself), and receive a $10 gift certificate you can use toward your auction purchases.

Here's to making a difference!

Encore! "Trust Me," the first novel in Brenda's new Last Stand series goes on sale May 27! You'll be able to catch Michelle's exclusive video AuthorView with Brenda May 30, when Brenda comes back to tell us how the Online Auction is going!
Encore due! Now you can watch all RBTB video at youTube!
Encore tre! Dorothea Benton Frank GuestBlogs Tomorrow, Fri, May 9.
Encore quattro! Click here to check out more RBTB!

Some Like it Wicked

Posted by Michelle Buonfiglio 05/06/08 7:27pm GMT

I'm SO totally psyched. Teresa Medeiros has a new Highland (hooRAY) historical coming out in August, "Some Like it Wicked," and it's perched coyly on my TBR pile, tempting me to read it instead of doing my job. Avon's having a cool contest for the book in which you can win a dreamy beach vacation.

Click here to watch Teresa Medeiros in our exclusive video AuthorView.

She talks about her great hero, the one who's got to have sex with numerous women to stay alive. Sigh. She's such a lovely person, and we still miss her and her SquawkRadio friends, no?

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It's on! Brenda Novak's Online Auction for Diabetes Research happening now at BrendaNovak.com. It's on all this month. She started raising funds because her son, Thad (in photo w/Brenda), is a kid living with Diabetes. She's raised more than $350 thousand to date!

Whether you're a reader, writer, or just love to bid on cool items, you need to stop in, check out what's up for bid, and make some noise. There's everything from books, iPods, computers, a weekend at Susan Wiggs' lake house to an African safari and other great trips.

If'n you're gonna be at the Romance Writers of America national conference in San Francisco this summer, you may want to bid on my item: a nice little lunch (or dinner) with moi. If you're a writer, we'll talk industry and shameless self-promotion and I'll accept and read your next novel or manuscript. If you're a reader, we'll talk books and authors and sex and men who are big in all ways...

Brenda Novak's joining us here for a GuestBlogThursday - May 8 - to chat a little about the Auction for Diabetes Research. Plus, she may even dish about the mortifying thing I made her do in broad daylight - and in front of our cutie young Lifetime crew - while we filmed her interview at RT in Pittsburgh!

Who'd be your dream dinner date?  Romance author?  Movie star?  Historical figure?  What would you want to ask them?

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Speaking of RT, here's another fave friend, Gennita Low and me hanging. She's one of those trusted friends you can say outrageous stuff to and know she'll never be shocked, only laugh along with you. Check out her blog, cause she's way funny and always has a wicked humorous, yet decidedly "voice of reason" kinda take on all stuff romance. And her books are great!

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It's All About the Biker

Posted by Michelle Buonfiglio 04/29/08 7:31am GMT

Shannon McKenna's "Return to Me" once inspired one of my best girlfriends and I to come up with the phrase, "It's all about the bikers." We'd gotten obsessed with the book about a big, raunchy-talking, alpha biker-who's-not-just-a-biker (and wounded-in-his-soul war correspondent) bad-boy hero who comes back to town to claim the good-girl he left behind.

My friend, who'd long been a McKenna fan, then turned me on to more of McKenna's romantic thrillers and short stories from Brava anthologies. The end of this month - if it's not at your bookstore already - McKenna's got another super-dee-duper hot short called "Anytime, Anywhere," in Brava's latest Bad Boys erotic romance anthology, "Baddest Bad Boys."

Now, I love me some Brava bad boys, cause they're always the right length. Being that they're anthologies, you cheeky Bellas! Sheesh. The Bad Boys books always contain three or more hot shorts perfectly sized for a spicy little bedtime story, or an energetic pick-me-up to start the day off right.

McKenna's "Anytime, Anywhere" riffs one of my fave plot devices: Older bro's best friend realizes his best bud's kid sister's grown up into a sexy, total-package woman who's his for the asking. Sigh.

What's your fave kind of Bad Boy hero? What's your favorite plot device? Secret baby? Hero and heroine fighting over piece of property? Desert sheik impregnates one-night-stand, kidnaps her and makes her his secretary mistress? Spill!

Encore! Please don't think Mr. Gym Guy above is purely for your gratuitous titillation. Oh, no. He's my way of reminding us all to be good to our bodies and do some form of vigorous exercise every day. Very vigorous.

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More Romantic Times convention photos:

L-R: JR Ward's most excellent assistant, LeElla; moi, JR and former Mr. Romance and totally great guy, Andrei Claude. JR drops 3, count em, 3 big teases about "Lover Enshrined" in the interview we shot at RT! You can see it June 4 when JR GuestBlogs here at RBTB.

Bella Marjorie Lui, who asked me to please say hi to you for her! She is universally well-liked, and you cannot imagine how sweet and inherently kind she is. Every woman I know who knows her remarked, "I just wish I knew the perfect guy to fix her up with!" To know her is to totally see why even the most together guy might be intimidated; she's got it all.




John DeSalvo, former Mr. Romance and novel cover guy. You can see John and Andrei Claude in this special myLifetime feature on romance novel cover guys.

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In Bed With Fabio

Posted by Michelle Buonfiglio 04/25/08 8:10am GMT

Sometimes it's the things that aren't said in an interview that make the thing pop. Here are a few of those from the one-on-one we shot with Fabio Lanzoni in Romantic Times (RT) mag grande dame Kathryn Jordan's boudoir while at last week's Romantic Times reader convention...

Top Five Things That Weren't Said in My Interview With Fabio...In Bed!

5. I understand and admire your following rigid ethics and journalistic standards, Michelle. But I don't remember Katie Couric or Sam Donaldson massaging my thighs before our interviews.
4. Oh, Fabio! Is that a romance novel in your pocket, or did you just raid the RT Goodie Room's supply of Ellora's Cave Condom Pops?
3. Buonfiglio. Your last name tells me you must have a little Italian in you, cara. Get rid of the crew and I'll give you a whole lot more.
2. No, really, Fabio. Your agent said it was very important to your career that we do this interview with me straddling you in some way.
1. Dio! It's hot in here! Are you sure you're married, Michelle?

OK. So he really did say that last one, but only after I'd performed a little service for him I'm pretty certain no woman's ever provided quite in the way I did. If we're very lucky, it'll all have been gotten on film, and you can view my wantonness in the merry month of May when myLifetime.com offers up "In Bed With Fabio."

I believe it's the hard-hitting interview that will catapult my career into the "serious journalism" category. Or ruin it. One or the other.

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Check out Helen Brenna/NASCAR Romance Week at RBTB!

Ann Herendeen GuestBlog: Why Are the Hottest Men Gay?

Posted by Michelle Buonfiglio 04/24/08 10:32am GMT

From Michelle: A couple years ago when I wrote RBTB for WNBC.com et al, I read this amazing small-house-pubbed, bi-sexual Regency romance by Bella Ann Herendeen that blew me away. I thought it deserved to be seen by more folks, so I talked it up. I'm so pleased to say that Ann's getting her due and she's back to visit with us again, now pubbed with a major house. Please offer Ann your warmest -- and I mean warmest -- "Yeah, I think reading about gay guys in love having wicked good sex is damn hawt, too" Bella buongiorno...

From Ann: Why are the hottest men gay? Have you ever fantasized about a gay guy trying bisexuality-just once-with you? "Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander," (out now from HarperCollins) my m/m/f Regency romantic comedy, is for all us women who want that unattainable man.

One of the great things about writing a historical romance is the kinds of plots you can use that would be...unlikely in a contemporary story. With Phyllida, set in 1812 London, I bring my reluctant hero and wary heroine together in a marriage of convenience.

Andrew Carrington is tall, dark, handsome, wealthy, heir to a title-and gay. Phyllida Lewis is pretty, sexy, clever, an "authoress" of gothic novels-and poor.

Andrew needs an heir the old-fashioned way-marriage to a woman. But he refuses to change his lifestyle. Phyllida would like very much not to be poor, and to be free to write. And when she meets Andrew, drop-dead gorgeous and masterfully masculine, she knows she'd rather have him, just as he is, than a lesser, if heterosexual, man.

What could possibly go wrong? Well, for starters, Andrew, sexually experienced and extremely "active"-with men-is clueless about women. He finds himself falling in love with his bride but lacks the skill to satisfy her. And when he meets blond, blue-eyed, hunky Matthew Thornby at a society ball-wham-bam!-it's a ménage just waiting to happen. Or is it?

What's your idea of an unattainable man? What would you put up with in order to have him? Does it count as sacrifice if you enjoy it, the way Phyllida likes seeing her sexy husband making out with his handsome boyfriends?

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Jenna Petersen GuestBlog: An Erotic Romance with No Sex!

Posted by Michelle Buonfiglio 04/23/08 8:29am GMT

From Michelle: Bella Jenna Petersen aka Jess Michaels (2007 RBTB Year's Best Historical Erotic Romance) is back, and she hasn't disappointed! First, she's brought kittens! And, second, um, fair warning: I got a little hot just reading her GuestBlog, which has nothing to do with kittens and everything to do with her new Jess Michaels novel, "Something Reckless." Please offer Jenna a warm "Dayum, but the cover of your 'Lessons From a Courtesan' is wicked hawt" Bella buongiorno...

From Jenna/Jess: Hi everyone! I'm so glad to be back amongst the Bellas, especially since this week is very special to me. It's a release week! On Tuesday, my 9th published romance, "Something Reckless" (written under my Jess Michaels name) came out from Avon Red. So thanks for sharing this special week with me.

See, right now I'm really excited about "Something Reckless" and I'm doing the normal "author thing" where I am nervous and obsessive and nervous some more about how it's doing and will people like it and will people buy it, etc, etc. But last year when I was writing it... I was nervous about something else. You see, Something Reckless is an erotic romance with very little sex. In fact, the first consummated sex scene doesn't happen until page 223 out of 264. Don't get me wrong! There's a lot of that special, hot, super sexy action going on all through the book, but when it comes to the hero and heroine really getting down to it, they were slow starters.

How did this happen, you ask? How could I, since I'm rather known for my super sexy stories under both my names, have written a book labeled erotic romance without sex? Well, you see, it all started with the story.

My heroine, Penelope Norman accidentally started this crusade against the sexual excess of the men of the ton and now she's being upheld as a paragon of virtue. My hero, Jeremy Vaughn, is sworn to prove her a hypocrite and end her rabblerousing by any means possible. He spends the book pretending to be her convert during the day and visiting her by night as a mystery lover.

So, you see, the moment Penelope surrendered to him... the book would be over. Jeremy would have proven his point and that would be that. Penelope is intrigued and aroused by the mystery man who writes her erotic letters and wants to possess her in every way, but she clings to her personal morals, putting a limitation to their meetings that keeps him at bay.

Plus, I was slowly developing the relationship between Jeremy and Penelope by day. The power struggle between the quintessential rake and the crusader. The tenuous friendship they develop. And ultimately the strong feelings they inspire in each other. Penelope, in some ways, is torn between two lovers. She doesn't know they are the same man. So the moment where she surrenders to one over the other was also going to be a turning point in the book.

So, I wrote an erotic romance that doesn't have consummated sex until 85% of the way through the story. And it's hot. And I hope it's also emotional and powerful and something that will keep you up all night and make you grab for your significant other before you're done.

So what makes a story hot to you? What makes you love erotic romance? And if you haven't tried it, what holds you back? Maybe the sassy Bellas can sway your opinion! :)

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Check out Helen Brenna/NASCAR Romance Week at RBTB!

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Thursday: Ann Herendeen of "Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander" fame

Janet Mullany GuestBlog: Breaking the Rules

Posted by Michelle Buonfiglio 04/21/08 9:36am GMT

From Michelle: Jane Lockwood/Janet Mullany's "Forbidden Shores" was one of my favorite novels of 2007, and one of the best erotic romances I've read. It's got this marvelous, dangerous sexual and emotional tension -- and bold, romantic yearning that teases and satisfies the reader who likes her sensibilities tossed asunder every once in a while. Please offer Janet your warmest Bella buongiorno...

From Janet:

"'We'll concentrate on your pleasure this first time. I trust that is agreeable, Miss Onslowe?' he whispered into her mouth. He wanted to be formal with her, a prelude to the reversal of formality when they would obey a different set of rules.

Her small gasp parted her lips to the tip of his tongue--just the tip, no more; give her a taste, make her want him as much as he wanted her."

Rules. How lucky we are to have them to break, in writing and in our characters' behavior.

Forbidden Shores is my first published erotic romance (written as Jane Lockwood), although I like to describe my first book, Dedication, as an erotic romance cunningly described as a traditional Regency. And in The Rules of Gentility (2007) I set out to subvert the "rules" of historical romance.

As Clarissa and Allen are about to discover in Forbidden Shores, if you are used to obeying a set of rules (as people two hundred years ago did) then the very act of breaking those rules is subversive and, in this situation, erotic. They will also discover that creating, and obeying, a new set of rules, is something equally arousing--and dangerous, too.

And I discovered that I was breaking rules, too, in writing the sort of books I wanted to read, and to my great pleasure, some people enjoy reading them! In Forbidden Shores, I wanted to write about the relationship between three people (I hate the term menage a trois) but I wanted to explore what happens when it's a threesome ruled by jealousy and unrequited love--when each of the three fall in love with the one who can't love them back.

My characters tend to be fairly normal, resilient people who deal with the bad stuff and get on with their lives. Falling in love is the very worst thing that can happen to them, and opens their lives to conflict and chaos and suffering: they find themselves in a world where they no longer know the rules.

I also introduced a deadly serious subject into an erotic romance--I was writing about people involved in the British abolitionist movement. Then my editor asked me to set it in the Caribbean. Originally the book was set in London--what, after all, could be sexier than Quakers signing petitions in bad weather? While the Caribbean setting made for a stronger story and greater personal stakes for my characters, it made it a much harder book to write because I had to address the subject of slavery directly. I was very happy that the book has a 2007 publication date, on the 200th anniversary of the Act of Parliament that ended the British slave trade.

What sort of rule-breaking do you enjoy?
How do you feel about historical realism in romance?

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Check out Helen Brenna/NASCAR Romance Week at RBTB!
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Tomorrow: Bella fave, Jenna Petersen
Thursday: Ann Herendeen of "Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander" fame