It’s the end of the novel. The heroine and hero have been through hell, at least if they’re in one of my books. They’ve earned their happily ever after. Vows are made in the presence of loved ones. Rings are exchanged. Then the groom kisses the bride, and....

Well, traditionally, the couple are introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Man’s Name. Etiquette says that if your name is Mary Ross and you marry a guy named Gary Jones that you become Mrs. Gary Jones. Get me a bucket, because I’m going to puke!

Most people don’t do that. In most circles, Mary Ross Jones is often introduced as Mrs. Mary Jones. And for most people, that’s probably okay.

But I’m one of those women who just cannot fathom why any woman should change her name because she marries some guy. I. Just. Don’t. Get. It. As a matter of fact, when my mother sent a card to me post-wedding and addressed it to Mrs. Man’s Name, I wrote “Return to send, no such person at this address” and tossed it back in the mailbox.

As the old saying goes, “When a man and a woman marry, they become one, and that one is the man.” That is so not for me.

I didn’t change my name, and my kids were given hyphenated names. I now regret that. They should have gotten my name because they came from me. (I’m only half joking.)

Other societies, such as Viking culture, have managed the whole name thing without stripping women of their identities. Lars and Dagmar would have a son whose last name is Larsen (son of Lars) and Dagmar would have daughter named Dagmarsdottir (Dagmar’s daughter). In lots of places, such as among the Navajo, a woman keeps her last name, while the kids get their father’s last name (probably due to exposure to European culture). So why do we do this?

It’s not a problem for me because, unless I married a guy with a super-cool last name, I would not change my name. It’s not about love; it’s about identity. But as an author, I have characters who get married.

Kara didn’t change her last name. It didn’t even occur to me that anyone would expect her to. Tessa didn’t change hers, either — until one of my friends, who was reading the book as I was writing it, e-mailed me and said, “Isn’t she taking Julian’s name?” My immediate response was, “Why would she do that?” But in the end, because Darcangelo is the coolest name ever — I stole it from a friend — I gave in and went with convention.

Sophie is Sophie Alton-Hunter now, and I wish I’d left her with her own last name. Kat is legally still Katherine James, though Gabe has called her Katherine James Rossiter. And Natalie? I haven’t even thought about it.

It’s an uncomfortable thing for me. My heroine taking the hero’s last name makes as much sense to me as calling Julian Mr. Tessa Novak. It’s ridiculous!

I feel certain that society will progress to the point where women routinely keep their own last names. But in the meantime, I am writing books for a culture that isn’t there yet.

Do you expect the heroine to take the hero’s last name?

Other news: I had my pre-op appointment today — blood tests, EKG, etc. I think I passed. They bumped my surgery back by one hour, so it’s now 1 p.m. on Aug. 3. I’m hopeful, but still nervous.

My rose mallow and purple cone flower have gone nuts. They’re both so beautiful! Today, there was a swallowtail butterfly flitting from flower to flower for almost an hour. I watched it and photographed it. And here it is with my sexy car in the background.



Sarita, Cheri if you’re reading this, please know I’m very behind on my e-mail. Getting the paper ready to fly without me for two months and getting things done around the house has eaten up so much time.

Yesterday, I was interviewed by a woman who's doing research for a documentary about the world of romance novels. The conversation focused heavily on my own life story and how I became an author — but we also talked about what appeals to readers about the romance genre. I emphasized the HEA — the fact that readers of romance like investing their time in books that have upbeat, happy endings as opposed to cynical, depressing, more "literary" endings.

Afterward, I found myself wondering why I chose specifically to write romance. As a journalist, I could certainly write creative nonfiction. I've always loved straight historical fiction, too — stuff like Mika Waltari's Sinhue, the Egyptian — and I have a desire to immerse myself in that.

So what is my motivation for writing romance instead of something else?



I suppose part of it is the fact that romantic fiction is still easier to break into than many other kinds of fiction. It enables a lot of writers to get their foot through the door of publishing. But that’s certainly not the only reason I write romance. Shallow interests like that are not enough to sustain me through the turmoil of writing a novel. And, yes, sometimes it is turmoil. I can’t imaging writing a tough scene at one in the morning motivated only by the desire to get a toe-hold on publishing. Ha!

I realized last night that my motivation for writing romance depends on the sub-genre. When it comes to writing historicals, I love the research and the chance that writing these novels gives me to bring history alive. Yes, the love story is fun, and the happy ending is emotionally satisfying. But what probably drives me page by page is the opportunity to disappear into a simpler time in history, a time when you didn’t have to worry whether your cell phone was going to give you a brain tumor or whether your kids were going to end up addicted to meth or whether the banks on Wall Street were going to conspire to rob everyone blind, and so on.


Readers who prefer historicals probably love that same thing. I was a historical romance reader once — still am, in fact — so I feel like I can say this with some authority. Readers love disappearing from the vulgar concerns of the modern world to a time when lack of technology and restrictive social norms meant that men and women lived in a very different reality. Personally, I find men sexier back in history. Guys sitting in cubicles in suits doesn’t do it for me. A man struggling to plough a field the old-fashioned way or forging a sword or learning to fight with a sword is much sexier, much more romantic. Men using their physical strength to survive are just waaay hotter than men playing video games. (Of course, that’s true in part because I can’t smell these men. Yes, the modern male smells better.)

So that accounts for historicals. But what about romantic suspense?

My agent believes the I-Team books are a sort of therapy for me. They enable to me to live out some of the scarier things that have happened to me — falling off a mountain, having a gun held on me (twice), having my home broken into by two men armed with switch blades, death threats, being sexually assaulted, etc. — and have control over those events. I’m sure this is true. But when I woke up this morning, I realized there’s more to it than that.



I’ve reported on some disturbing shit over the years: the desecration of Navajo graves; the abuse of female inmates by correctional officers; child sex trafficking; companies getting away with pollution; murders; rapes; massacres. This stuff follows journalists home at night. You can't cover a murder scene or interview a rape victim or talk to a family that lost a child in a school shooting without carrying that pain inside you. Like cops, journalists agonize over the stuff we see (and develop the same dark sense of humor as a result).

So, I agree that the I-Team books are a kind of therapy for me, but not just for the things I have personally been through. The stories also enable me to take situations I felt were terribly unjust and do something about them that I wasn’t able to do in real life. That’s why Unlawful Contact had Reece passing the anti-shackling law. That’s why all the rapists and murderers die. That’s why the polluters are shut down, grave robbers are caught and prosecuted, and abusive guards brought to justice.

Justice prevails in the world I create, and I experience the catharsis of that.

So, now, why do you read romance? Why does it appeal to you more than other forms of fiction? What do you get out of these stories? Feel free to break it down by sub-genre if you need to.

I'll admit it. I'm a sucker for it. And I'm not even sure why.

When I wrote Ride the Fire, I was pretty sure the story was going to tank. It contained so many forbidden elements, foremost among them a heroine who was heavily pregnant with a baby that wasn't the hero's. I didn't care. The story had fallen into my heart in one big chunk, and I wanted to write what I saw because to me it was beautiful. A tortured man and an abused woman find themselves alone together in the midst of a violent frontier and, by working together, slowly overcome their own horror and fall in love.

I was also determined to write a more realistic birth scene than one gets from, say, television. Having given birth twice — once without so much as an IV or an aspirin — I really wanted to do justice to this very feminine experience of childbirth. So often, it's glossed over, and yet it is an amazing, horrible, terrifying, exciting and transformative experience for women. I've always felt our society doesn't give the act of giving birth the respect it deserves. (In ancient Sparta, for example, women who died in childbirth were given the same honors as men who died in battle. Can you imagine that here? But I digress...)


Of course, once you have a baby you have to feed it, so I include breastfeeding, which was the only way to nourish a baby in historical times and is still the best way to feed a child. I nursed my oldest till he was 15 months old and my younger son till he was 10 months old, at which time I was in the hospital for a while and he was weaned by circumstance, not choice. Neither received formula or bottles.



In my other novels, both contemporary and historical, the HEA often involves a new baby, though not always. I'm conscious of the fact that I tend to include that and have tried to veer away from it so that it doesn't become repetitious for you all to read. But there's something about pregnancy and new babies that adds to the HEA for me, at least.

In historicals, of course, it's realistic. I always find it strange and unrealistic when a man and woman in a historical romance can get it on for several weeks or even months and not make a baby. In contemporary novels, it depends on how careful the hero and heroine choose to be, so it's completely realistic that the heroine might not get pregnant. Still, it adds to the sense of fulfillment at the end of the story if I know that a baby is on the way.

Why do I feel that way? Not sure. I guess that children, for me, are the outcome of deepest true love between a man and a woman. They represent the love the hero and heroine have for one another.

I've caught some heat for having birth scenes that are detailed and for including breastfeeding. One reader emailed me and asked, "Can't we just assume that she nurses the baby? Why do you have to show it?"

I show it because I think it's beautiful. The same is true of pregnancy and birth. They're beautiful and natural and the outcome of the hero and heroine's passion for one another. Also, they're a very real part of many women's experience of life and are far too often hidden to society's detriment, I believe.

But that's just how I feel.

So what do you think? Does pregnancy and/or birth enrich the HEA? And what about breastfeeding?