Thinking of all my Australian and New Zealand friends and readers on ANZAC Day!

For my American readers who don't know what ANZAC Day is, it's a day that honors the soldiers from Australia and New Zealand who died specifically at Galipoli in Turkey in World War I — I believe it was close to or more than 10,000 men — but more generally those who've served and died for their countries.



I'd love to hear more about it, so my dear Aussie and Kiwi friends, feel free to tell us how you spent the day (which for you has mostly passed) and what the day means to you.

So, I went for a long walk on a rocky trail wearing the wrong shoes and managed to give myself a stress fracture in my heel bone up near the arch. This is such an undignified way to give one's self an injury that my staff at the paper and I started spreading blatant lies at work, telling everyone I got drunk and was injured in the mosh pit at a concert or that we'd all gotten drunk and the entertainment editor had run over my foot with a borrowed car or that one of my staff and I had gotten into a fight at a bar and she'd shoved me and I'd fallen over with my foot hooked beneath the table.

The great thing is that people are believing them. I'm not a great liar — I once tried to make the entertainment editor think I was firing him instead of promoting him, just to amuse myself, but failed because I cracked up laughing — but I'm managing to keep a straight face when I fib to the ad sales guys and production staff.

Went for a walk? How pathetic!

OK, granted I walk really hard and fast. I used to do long-distance running and could clip off six-minute miles. Not many women can do that who don't run semi-professionally. I've had stress fractures in my feet from doing that, but not my heel.

I've gotten behind on everything — blogging, e-mail, visiting other folks' blogs — because from Tuesday night on I was in pretty bad pain. I went to the doc on Wednesday because when you can't sleep and can't walk due to pain in your foot you need to go to the doctor. She x-rayed my foot then fixed me up with a handy removable cast. It's like a big boot — no doubt very sexy.

I haven't gotten behind in writing, however, because I was already behind. I actually spent my time waiting for my x-ray outlining the next chapter in Naked Edge. So I'm ready to coffee up and sit here with my foot elevating writing.

We've had a mix of rain and snow for the past 24 hours. Last night it was raining so hard I could hear it on my roof. This may seem like nothing to those of you who live in places where rain is routine. When we get a hard rainstorm in Colorado, people stand at their windows and watch because it's not all that common. We have more ghost rain — rain that evaporates before it hits the ground — than rain.

About my most recent poll: It's been a while since I updated the poll but I'll do that today. My most recent poll was about Lord William Wentworth, the anti-hero of the MacKinnon's Rangers series. Some of you hate him. Some of you like him. Some don't know what to think. I know this from reading your e-mails. So I wondered how people would feel about Lord William getting his own happily-ever-after. The results? Most of you — 64 percent — like the idea, while 32 percent don't like Lord William enough to see him as a hero and feel you could tolerate him getting an HEA if it were a secondary plot in the story. One respondent didn't think William deserves an HEA at all.

I do intend to write a story for him, but I assure those of you who feel he isn't heroic enough that he will pay for the wrongs he has done. Yes, he will be made to suffer. In the end, he will pay such a high price that even the MacKinnon brothers will find it in their hearts to forgi'e him.

O.C.D. — An update on my Obsessive Cullen Disorder. I have read all of the books. I liked the first best, the second second best and so on. I liked the fourth book least. I won't discuss the stories here because I don't want to give the plot away to anyone who hasn't read them yet. I am just so relieved to have that out of my system! By the time I finished the fourth book, I was ready to be done. Overall, I'd probably give the series a 4 out of 5 stars. The last time I enjoyed reading so many pages about the same characters was in the midst of the Harry Potter books (which I loved).

Have a great weekend, everyone! And please wear the right shoes for whatever activity you're undertaking!

Look at what I just got from my editor at Berkley — the cover for Naked Edge! The colors are showing up a bit funky here, but it's actually a kind of purple. I absolutely love it and think it fits the story — and the series — very well. It's important that it fit the feel of the other books, I think.

What do you think???????????

I am on Chapter 17 out of 30 now — that's more than half-way done. Most of the really hard work — characterization, research, etc. — are done, so I hope that the second half will move much more quickly than the first half. I may be going longer and longer between blog posts as I finish the book because I desperately need to catch up. So please forgive me if these posts sit for a long time!

I'm dying to hear your thoughts.

Also, here's an image I found that would also be great for casting Kat and Gabe — it's Nathan Kamp and some preternaturally beautiful woman.



Have a great day, everyone! It's almost Friday!

I must have ADD, because I suddenly found myself wanting to move on from this topic. Therefore I spent some time one evening "casting" the rest of the rolls. I used your votes to cast the heroes, then just kind of went out and did the rest. I hope you like the results!




Reece and Kara






Julian and Tessa






Marc and Sophie



Tom Trent or Chief Irving -- I have a very concrete image of both men in my mind and I had a hard time finding anyone who came close. However, this suggestion (made by Bo? I can't remembeR) is a good one.



This is exactly how I think of Matt, plus I love Paul Bettany! He's a fantastic actor and fits Matt to a "T."


Jennifer Connelly (by coincidence Paul Bettany's wife) would be the perfect Natalie.


Natasha Kaye Johnson is a real Navajo actress and journalist. She'd be a great Kat with contact lenses. I'm not sure who she's with in this photo, but the grannie here is very much typical of the wonderful grannies one finds in Navajoland.