Pat's Nonsensicality

Hi to all. . .
I’m delighted to be here and share with you fun and laughter, perhaps even tears at times, but especially the oft nonsensicality (my word - do not look up in dictionary) of every day living. The latter includes, of course, the joys and tribulations of the writing life.

As it happens, this is tribulation week. I have a new book – "Tempting the Devil" --coming out next week and, as usual, I am a trembling wreck. It always happens thus. Even after more than forty books, I agonize every time a book is released. The cover won’t attract readers. The type too small. The cost too great. And it’s absolutely the worst book I ever wrote.

I make that sad judgment every time I finish a book. Familiarity, apparently, really does breeds contempt, or is it just so difficult to judge your own work? So I wait anxiously for reviews and any kind of feedback to tell me I'm wrong. Wrong. WRONG. Waiting anxiously? Too mild a term. More like waiting in the anteroom of the netherworld to learn whether you are going to heaven or hell.

But this is the subject for a later blog. In the meantime, I want you to know a little more about me. I have great passion for books, flowers and anything with four legs and a tail. (I am also very fond of frogs which, I suppose, also qualify as four-legged beasties). I currently have three rescue dogs: a well behaved, loveable and ancient Shih Tzu and two young part-Australian shepherd sisters I call the Wild Indians. The latter are also loveable and loving but – apropros to their name – not yet fit for civilized society. We go swimming together (I swim, they watch) which is my much loved form of exercise.

And about books. I grew up on books by Mary Stewart, Elswyth Thane (if you haven’t read her Williamsburg series, try to find it especially if you have teenage daughters), Victoria Holt, Frank Yerby, Frank Slaughter, Daphne du Maurier, Margaret Campbell Barnes -- among others -- during the fifties, sixties and seventies. They were all, of course, romance writers, though not called that then. But they influenced my love for writing romances. During the next months, I would dearly love to know the books that made you love reading, and why.

I currently write a mixture of romantic suspense and historicals, though I've written a few short contemporaries as well. I love them all (after some distance), and I truly appreciate those readers who try both. I've been a RITA Finalist five times, twice in romantic suspense and thrice in historicals.

In the next months, I hope to know you better, even as you learn more about us. I can't wait for you to come play with us.

And then I hope you stay and become a part of a very special circle of friends.