{"id":3918,"date":"2010-10-05T03:00:54","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T10:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/?p=3918"},"modified":"2010-10-01T15:49:44","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T22:49:44","slug":"tattoos-and-mistletoe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/tattoos-and-mistletoe\/","title":{"rendered":"Tattoos and Mistletoe"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Susan Lyons\/Fox\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Is it too early to start thinking about Christmas? Not for me, because I have a brand-new release\u2014THE NAUGHTY LIST<\/strong>, Brava\u2019s 2010 holiday anthology. This is my first multi-author anthology for Brava\u2014and I\u2019m thrilled to be there alongside stars Donna Kauffman and Cynthia Eden.<\/p>\n

When Kensington asked me to be a part of this holiday anthology, I immediately started playing with ideas.<\/p>\n

The last Christmas story I wrote, \u201cUnwrap Me\u201d in UNWRAP ME, was set in Vancouver, BC. I live in Vancouver and love it, but we\u2019re not exactly known for snowy Christmases. This time, I wanted a holiday story set in snow country.<\/p>\n

And the setting was obvious, because I was brainstorming this novella in the build-up to the 2010 Olympics in Whistler. Whistler, when the Olympics aren\u2019t happening there, is perhaps an even more intriguing community. It\u2019s a small town\u2014yet it\u2019s an international resort.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As I started thinking about characters, I realized it was the small town aspect I wanted to focus on. I love \u201cgoing home\u201d stories, such as \u201cyou can never go home again\u201d or \u201cyou have to go home again.\u201d In \u201cTattoos and Mistletoe,\u201d<\/strong> I chose \u201cyou have to go home again.\u201d In other words, if you\u2019ve had a really rotten past, you have to come to terms with it before you can be a truly whole person and move on to build a happy future.<\/p>\n

So I found (because characters and I find each other, it\u2019s not like I actually \u201ccreate\u201d them) Charlie Coltrane. The girl from the wrong side of the tracks who…well, I\u2019ll let her say it in her own words, if you\u2019ll pardon the language.<\/p>\n

People had assumed the kid of two loser drunks had to be a loser, too. That gave Charlie two choices: let them know she gave a fuck, or tell them to fuck off. She\u2019d had enough pride that the first choice wasn\u2019t an option. <\/em><\/p>\n

A graffiti artist, arrested, suspended from school, almost raped by her date at the Christmas dance, orphaned at Christmas, then shunned by her remaining relative, no wonder she dropped out of school, left town, and vowed never to return.<\/p>\n

Of course, I had to force her back there\u2014courtesy of the aunt who\u2019d shunned her, who at the end of her life was suffering from guilt and, just maybe, the urge to matchmake. How the aunt and I finessed this… Well, let\u2019s just say there\u2019s one very hot tool-belt guy involved! A guy who just happened to play a role in Charlie\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t you think high school geeks deserve happy endings? Those genius science nerds whose brains were overdeveloped but who kind of lagged behind in other areas? The ones who had crushes on the very baddest girls\u2014like Charlie Coltrane? Yeah, that\u2019s LJ Jacoby, and man, did he grow up fine!<\/p>\n

As I had fun getting to know Charlie and LJ and the two of them got to know each other, we all found out that sometimes, if you work through the baggage you\u2019ve dragged around from your teens, you can envision a brighter future than you\u2019d ever dared dream. Especially if there\u2019s a sprinkle of Christmas magic, and a big bunch of mistletoe!<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your view on baggage from the past? Should a person just toss it off the bridge and forget all about it? Could you do that? Or do you figure that, at some point in a person\u2019s life, they\u2019re going to have to come to terms with it? And, as a second question, if that one\u2019s too heavy for you, when do you think publishers should release their holiday books? Is late September too early?<\/p>\n

Someone who comments will receive a copy of\u00a0 <\/em>THE NAUGHTY LIST<\/strong>\u2014autographed by all three authors!<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Please leave a comment\u00a0to enter to win THE NAUGHTY LIST<\/strong>. If you\u2019re reading this blog through a feed at Facebook, Goodreads or another social network, please note you need to leave your comment at www.museinterrupted.com<\/a> to enter.<\/p>\n

To read the back cover blurb for\u00a0THE NAUGHTY LIST <\/strong>or to read Susan bio, see yesterday\u2019s post. Visit\u00a0Susan’s website<\/a>\u00a0to learn more about her and her books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Susan Lyons\/Fox Is it too early to start thinking about Christmas? Not for me, because I have a brand-new release\u2014THE NAUGHTY LIST, Brava\u2019s 2010 holiday anthology. This is my first multi-author anthology for Brava\u2014and I\u2019m thrilled to be there alongside stars Donna Kauffman and Cynthia Eden. When Kensington asked me to be a part… Continue reading Tattoos and Mistletoe<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,39,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-authors","category-give-aways","category-guest-bloggers","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3918"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3924,"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions\/3924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}