Isabel Morin's Blog, page 4

My Latest Crush

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I announce my intention to write a book that features such and such characters, or will take place in such and such a setting, and then I start writing and I completely change my mind. The lesson here is either to stop announcing things before I really know what I'm going to do, or to just go with the flow and hope that no one minds these changes of heart.
The latest is that I recently developed a whole new crush, this time on Ryan Bingham, the singer songwriter/former bull rider. He first came to my attention for being on the soundtrack of the 2009 movie "Crazy Heart," but it was only a couple of weeks ago that I finally downloaded one of his own albums. In the course of doing that and checking out his website for tour dates, I also got a look at him and realized that on top of having the kind of deep, raspy voice we ladies swoon over, he is also one sexy dude.
Go ahead, search Google images and see for yourself. I ain't lying. 
Naturally, I couldn't help thinking that a character inspired by this guy would make a great romance hero. But in what book? I was planning for my next series to take place in Maine, and he definitely does not belong in Maine. But he would make perfect sense in Las Vegas, and wouldn't it be fun if Beth, Cheryl's friend and the heroine of Sin City Book Three, got it on with a sexy singer like him? I had planned on her hooking up with Evan, Jason's friend, but that's not set in stone. 
Without even thinking it all through, I just started to write, indulging my fantasy through Beth. I figured I needed to to do it even if I ended up switching back to Evan, because my crush needed an outlet. Now I'm seriously into it, as is Beth, so this may just be a completely different book than I intended. But I love romances that indulge our fantasies while also somehow being believable, and that's what I'm after in every book I write.
This new crush does not in any way diminish my love of Viggo Mortenson, Timothy Olyphant or Justin Timberlake. There's always room for more, and some of these others may yet turn up as inspiration for other heroes. I also reserve the right to change my mind again, in the event that this book, for whatever reason, is not working with a sexy singer. I'll let you know if that happens. But whoever Beth's romantic interest ends up being, I promise it will be plenty steamy, and of course there'll be a happily ever after. 

Vacation's All I Ever Wanted

In precisely 42 hours I will be heading to Maine for a week-long vacation and I can't freakin' wait. I was never big on Maine, had only been there once or twice when I was really young, but last year someone let us use their cabin in Rangeley and we were instantly hooked on the area. We booked a different cabin as soon as we got home from our vacation last August, so we've essentially been waiting a year to go back.

The week we went last year, the town's little movie theater showed Jaws for free one night, and it was a blast. I think I really fell in love with the town that night, sitting in that dark theater with strangers and watching a faded print of that awesome movie, which I had never seen in a theater. It was scarier than I'd remembered, and I wasn't the only one who hadn't remembered, because a bunch of people brought young kids. (Note: don;t ever do this. Your children will be very afraid and probably have nightmares.)

Tangential note: I learned this past weekend that great whites usually attack from below, so you would rarely see a fin beforehand. I'm glad Spielberg ignored that little tidbit.

The reason I bring up my trip (besides being super excited) is that I've decided that after Sin City Book Three, I'm going to start a series that takes place in a town based on Rangeley. That way I can sort of live there all year long, or as long as it takes me to write the (probably three) books. I've already got some ideas for the characters (a hunky forest ranger, a b&b owner, logger, etc). I don't have a name for the series yet, but perhaps by the time I come home, I will. Suggestions are welcome.

Now for the book review portion of our program:

I've been on a great streak the past few weeks. I didn't throw a single book down in disgust. I read Sarah Pekkanen's These Girls and I think it's terrific. Insightful, entertaining, and a good story about three women friends. Also a realistic portrait of what it's like to live in NYC. Or so I think. I've never actually lived there. It's not a romance but there are romantic elements.

For my next book I went in a totally different direction: the beautiful and heart-wrenching The Fault in Our Stars by John Greene. It had been recommended to me, and I knew I was in for a sad story, but it was so worth the read. It's a love story, in a sense, about two teenagers with cancer, so not a light read, but it's also uplifting in the way anything beautiful can be. I recommend it without reservation. I am not the only one, either, as it's won all sorts of awards and has a zillion reviews.

Next up, Ride with Me by Ruthie Knox. This romance is going on my faves list. I wish I'd written it. The story is fresh, the characters likable, and it's super sexy. The woman can write a sex scene, and she doesn't skimp. Plus she's a fabulous writer. I actually found myself re-reading sentences because they were so witty or nicely said or unexpected. I love romance novels, but I'm often disappointed, and it's rare for the writing to be good enough that I re-read them as I'm going. Ride with Me is only .99 right now, so take advantage.

I was terrified that Ride with Me was Knox's only book, but much to my delight she's written a bunch. So after Ride with Me I read About Last Night which was also great and refreshing in its characters and storyline, and I have a couple more of her books on my kindle for vacation reading.

So happy reading, and I'll see you here when I'm back. : )

Long Live "Dirty Dancing"

A couple of weeks ago on a hot Sunday afternoon during the heat wave, I happily sat down and put my tape (as in VHS) of the movie Dirty Dancing into our dual DVD/VHS player. Except my delight ended all too soon when the machine ate it.

I had insisted that we keep the VCR so I could watch the half dozen VHS tapes I still have. "But you never watch them," my husband argued. What could I say? I hadn't, not since I met him over four years ago, but I needed to know that I could watch When Harry Met Sally, Grease, Dirty Dancing, The Turning Point or Buffy the Vampire Slayer whenever I needed to.

This dates me, I know. Though I was very young when Grease came out and a good deal of it went over my head ("Mom, what does 'the chicks'll cream' mean?"), I was a teenager when Dirty Dancing came out. I was visiting our grandmother in Florida when I finally saw it, and it was on that trip that I finally, finally got my period at the age of fifteen. These two events, seeing Dirty Dancing and becoming a woman at last, are forever linked in my mind. 
I loved the movie and have loved it through countless viewings in the years since, even when I recognized its imperfections. It depicts Baby's sexual awakening (which I was still personally waiting for the first 20 times I watched it), and now even as a grown and married woman, it still does something to me, something akin to what I felt the first time I saw it. I feel the hope and yearning and the first flush of love because they are now part of the movie for me.
Now I don't expect everyone to love it, but I was shocked when a friend of mine, a fellow romantic as well as a former professional dancer, told me that she didn't get why people loved it so much, why it's such a cultural touchstone when it's such a silly, cheesy movie. I was shocked, until she revealed that she didn't see it when it was first released in 1987. In fact, she didn't see it until she was in her thirties. 
This made me think about how some things hit us hard because we discover them at a particular time and they imprint themselves on us. We then forever carry how we felt that first time we encountered them with us forever. The same is true with certain books we read when we were kids. I never read the Narnia books when I was a kid, and by the time I realized what I'd missed out on, it was too late to feel their magic, to believe them like I would have if I'd read them sooner.

Some of the things in Dirty Dancing went over my head when I first saw it. I didn't completely comprehend that this took place when abortion was illegal, or what that meant for everyone in the story (not to mention in the country at that time). I also hadn't known about the Catskills, and how it was a favorite vacation spot for New York Jews in the earlier part of the 20th century. Family's like Baby's went to resorts, but the movie A Walk on the Moon depicts working class Jewish families heading to the same place, only instead of resorts they got little cottages. Nothing fancy, just something away from the city. If you haven't seen A Walk on the Moon, you really should. Viggo Mortensen stars with Diane Lane and it's a smart, very sexy, bittersweet story. And Viggo is young and crazy sexy.

Speaking of Jews, I'm one, and I have decided to make the heroine in my next novel (the as yet untitled Book Three in the Sin City series) Jewish. That said, religion will be as important in this one as it is in the others, which is to say, not at all important. But it's more about having a little diversity, a slightly different culture and background to work with, and I thought that would be fun. Hence we'll be seeing more of Cheryl's friend, Beth Levine, not to mention Jason's friend, the (gentile) ER doctor Evan Hunter. They are in for some crazy times.

Stirred Up is Now Available

I am thrilled to say that my new contemporary romance novel is available as of today at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. Isn't the cover sexy? So is the story!


Here's the description:


The last thing Cheryl Munro expects her first day student teaching is the sexy English teacher standing at the front of the classroom. But no matter how charming her new boss is, nothing is going to distract her from her goal – becoming a full-fledged teacher so she can put her years stripping at the Pink Pussycat Gentlemen’s Club behind her.
From the moment Cheryl walks into Jason Shaw’s classroom he has to remind himself she’s off-limits, at least until the semester’s over. But there’s no rule about being friends, and soon the two of them are spending time together after hours, doing their best to ignore their off-the-charts chemistry. He’s a patient man, and some things are worth waiting for.
But Jason’s discovery of the one secret Cheryl was determined to keep shakes both of them and confirms Cheryl’s worst fears. Will Jason be able to win back her trust, or do some scars run too deep?  Stirred Up is a full-length contemporary romance novel. It’s the second book in the Sin City series but can be read alone as well.

Visit my website for more details.

Sin City: The Musical

Okay, so there is no musical, but there is a new book in the series. Almost.

Stirred Up, which I talked about in an earlier post, will be released on July 27th, and I'm really excited about it. There are a few things that make it a little different from Tempt Me and Set Loose. For one, it's a full-length novel, which meant I got to really dig into the hero and heroine and see what made them tick, and I got to develop their relationship over a period of time.

Secondly, I would characterize it as a steamy contemporary romance (as opposed to erotica). The characters and their situation all demanded that the hot action did not take place immediately, even though the attraction is there right off the bat. Personally, I like excruciating sexual tension that builds until you're dying for the characters to get it on. And trust me, once they do get it on, there is plenty of action.

You'll also see some faces from Set Loose (Cutter, Emily, and Lisa) and meet new characters who will be featured in the third book in the series.

So that's my big news. My other news is that I just read Eleanor & Park and so should everyone else on planet Earth. It's a beautiful, amazing, intense YA romance and it blew my mind.

To Tempt, or Not to Tempt. That is the question.

Ever since I released Tempt Me in January, 2012, people have asked, either in emails to me or in reviews, whether there will be a sequel. The answer is: maybe. The thing is, I didn't plan to write more about Ian and Nina. If I had, I would have written it pretty quickly after I published the first part. Actually, I would have just put it out as a longer book, since I don't love it when authors release multiple novellas instead of one novel.

I didn't plan on writing Tempt Me at all. I had just finished my historical romance novel, No Other Love, and had been working on another historical. This one took place a couple years after the Civil War and featured a spinster who heads to Nevada as a mail order bride. I had been working on it for a couple of months and was miserable. I'd completely psyched myself out and couldn't imagine ever finishing it, and writing was no longer fun. I was expressing my despair to my friend Abby one day, and she suggested I take a break and write a novella, something that would be fun to write and that didn't have to conform to any particular market or audience.

So I did, and it was fun. First of all, it was so much easier and quicker to write a contemporary romance because I wasn't slowed down by research. Secondly, writing something short took away any doubt that I'd be able to finish it.

Some readers like the story enough that they want more of it, and some seem to feel let down or even cheated that it's so short. Some are happy with it just as it is. It never occurred to me that anyone would feel let down, because I felt like it ended where it should, after they'd worked through the main stumbling blocks to being together and declared their love. I love romances because I get to experience all the uncertainties and thrills of early love and lust, so that is what I tried to deliver. When we leave them at the end, they are on their way a having a happily ever after.

That said, I get why people want more. One of the joys of reading a romance is sinking into a book and living with those characters. I love Ian and Nina and could definitely find more to say about them. My fear is that if I did, it wouldn't be as satisfying as what I wrote in the first part. I would only be doing it to make readers happy, which is a great reason, but if I'm not feeling it I'll let people down anyway.

So I'm going to hold off, but if the spirit moves me I'll write it, and you'll all be the first to know.

Coming Soon...

I finally have a title for Book Two in the Sin City series: Stirred Up. Not only that, I am nearly done writing it! I expect to release it in July and will report back when I have an exact date. This one is a full-length novel and features Cheryl, the red-headed stripper from Set Loose. I'll have a nice little description for it soon.

Book Three will come out early next year, but since I havent started it yet, I can't get more specific than that.

Stay tuned...

New Adult for the Not-So-New Adult

Recently I've read a few "New Adult" romances, a sub-genre I hadn't heard of until recently. It's pretty new but has taken off now and is growing. (Of course, I often think something is taking off right when I hear about it.) Featuring heroes and heroines between 17 and  20 (ish), they often (though not always) depict the characters in a high school or college setting.  The content tends to be more mature than Young Adult novels, and the main characters often have sex at some point in the book. In the ones I've read, the sex is treated as a serious thing and the characters don't engage in it until they have reached a true understanding of each other. Of course, some adult romances take this approach, too.

The first book I read in this category was Tamara Webber's Easy, and I absolutely loved it. So when I heard about another New Adult book by another author who was getting a lot of press, I decided to give it a try. It had hundreds of rave reviews on Amazon, so I was pretty sure the book (hereafter referred to as Book X) was going to be good. Unfortunately, not so much. It started off strong and had intriguing, appealing characters, but it went downhill about halfway though and I ended up skimming the second half, unable to finish it.

Needing validation for my reading experience, I then went to Amazon to see if anyone else felt like I did. Reading through the two and three star reviews, I did find other readers who felt as I did, but they identified as adult women, thirty years old and up. The younger readers didn't seem to have a problem with how melodramatic and over-the-top the book got.

It got me thinking about what it means to read a book targeted at girls in their late teens when you are far beyond that yourself. I am not the target audience, so is it fair of me to criticize?  These books, like all romances, are fantasies, and in New Adult books, they're fantasies for girls decades younger than me. Who am I to judge?

Of course I do. A good book is a good book and this one could have been written better. A good editor would have done the trick. And there are some books that completely do it for me, regardless of their target age.  If I hear that something is good I want to try it, and it's a let down when the book isn't so great. I no longer trust Amazon reviews, since I so often don't agree with all the raves I read, but they are useful for judging which ones are worth taking the time to sample.

In any case, I'm still on the lookout for New Adult books. It's a time of life we all remember, and love at that time can feel even more poignant. People are just starting to understand themselves and become independent. These feelings are all new and wild and sometimes out of control. It's fun to read about it, and remember that time in your own life, even if nothing nearly so momentous or sexy happened during it.

When I was that age, I was reading long, over-the-top historical romances and loving it. Maybe I would have loved the melodrama of Book X at that age, too. It doesn't have to be great literature to hit you right where it counts.

I'm Your Number One Fan

This past Friday I headed off to Burlington, Massachusetts for the annual conference of the New England Chapter of the Romance Writers of America (NECRWA). After meeting my friend Abby (see previous post for more on her) for lunch we headed off to the master class on dialogue led by Julia Quinn, who looks and sounds like Mary Louise Parker at her West Wing sassiest. That class, and the other workshops on craft, are one of the best things about the meeting. While you're sitting there you get these "aha" moments where you suddenly think of something great to do with your story, and you leave actually knowing more.

Then there's meeting authors you've been reading or hearing about for years, like Marie Force and Judith Arnold, and discovering new authors and contacts. These meetings are basically hundreds of generous women hanging out together talking about romances. What could be more awesome?

Here's who else I saw there: Cara McKenna. If you follow my reviews on Goodreads, you know how I feel about Cara McKenna. So when I saw her walk by my table before dinner Friday night, I jumped up, ran over, interrupted a conversation she was having and told her how much I love her books. Hopefully I didn't scare her. I'm kind of tall and I felt like I was sort of looming over her like a crazed fan. But she thanked me and I left her alone to eat her dinner, having accomplished one of my goals for the meeting.

I drove home Saturday afternoon energized and ready to make the second book in the Sin City series totally awesome. I also may have a title for it: Set Free. Get it, Set Loose and then Set Free? But if I did that, what would I name the third book?

If anyone has an opinion about this, please feel free to comment.

I also thought up an idea for a new series based on a Maine town where my husband and I have gone on vacation. So I'm psyched about that. And to top it all off, this morning I dressed up in my best business casual and went to court to fight a ticket I got back in February (to the tune of $100), and it went in my favor. Now I have the rest of the day left to write, watch the last "New Girl" and "Mindy Project" episodes and meet my husband for sushi. No complaints today.

Keepin' It Real

I was in DC last week when a book by one of my favorite authors – one I had pre-ordered so long ago I had forgotten when to expect it – was delivered to my Kindle. I was aglow with delight, since I had all kinds of time in my hotel room at night, not to mention on the plane, to read it.

But alas, within the first chapter I knew it was not going to live up to her other books. The whole thing was flat, the conflict felt forced. It was, in a word, boring. I was sorely disappointed, seeing as how this particular author only releases one book a year.

When I got back from my trip I talked to Abby, my friend and critique partner, and told her what I thought of it. Now, she hadn't been happy with the author's last book, whereas I loved it. But because Abby loved her other books, she had still planned to buy the next one. And in fact, after we talked she even bought the one I had just condemned, because she had to see for herself. So, after talking about all the ways in which it was lame, we agreed we'd still buy her next book.

Below are the brilliant insights that came out of these discussions:

1) If you love an author enough, you will give her multiple chances. One not-so-great book isn't the end of the love affair.  This is a very reassuring thing if you are an author, since not everyone is going to love each book you publish.

2) It's possible to become too comfortable with what you are writing and lose the very thing that romance readers count on you for. Many romance authors, ones I love, succumb to this at one time or another. Whether they write too many books in one series, write too often about the same sorts of characters and stories, or are just pressured to publish too many books, it's easy to see how it can happen, especially over a long career. Abby and I made a pact that we will not let each other publish anything sub-par. We don't want to ever phone it in or not be excited about what we're writing, and we also want to have long writing careers that stand the test of time.

3) To keep things fresh, writers need to challenge themselves, step out of their comfort zones, and try new things. This is perhaps especially true with writers who produce books very often. It's no easy thing to maintain freshness and originality when writing one or more books every year. We re-committed ourselves to writing books in different romance genres and/or writing about people or situations that are challenging, scary or not usually done.

4) If, come a certain age, we are no longer interested in writing about sex (God forbid), we'll be honest with ourselves and each other and move on.

How do I plan to keep it fresh, you ask? I think after I finish the Sin City series I may try my hand at another historical. Some time ago I began one that takes place in and around Reno and Genoa, Nevada (where I spent my honeymoon) shortly after the Civil War. It features a spinster mail-order bride (I love a good spinster romance) and a jaded, wandering ex-US Marshall (Timothy Olyphant anyone?), and I have always meant to get back to it. After that, who knows. Paranormal. steampunk, new adult? I'm up for anything.