HelenKay Dimon

I’ve visited Japan twice. Both times I was with my hubby and his parents, which is good since I don’t speak or read Japanese and my in-laws do. Last visit was in 2004.

Can you guess what this is?

That is a side street in Kyoto. Those are houses.

I thought it was time to come clean. Tell the truth. I am a Syfy channel original movie addict. I blame my dad. Not that he likes science fiction movies all that much. I remember him being offended by the movie Independence Day because Will Smith’s character easily found his girlfriend at the military base during the alien attack. Dad thought that was unrealistic. Never mind the fact the movie is about an alien attack. My mom is actually the bigger science fiction fan than my dad, but I don’t think she watches the Syfy channel all that much, so I can’t blame her.

No, I blame dad because my ability to watch truly terrible movies without changing the channel can be traced back to him. I spent a lot of time watching the Sunday morning political talk shows with my dad. Every now and then, usually after football season had ended, we’d get lazy and watch whatever bad movie came on after the talk shows. This is how I saw almost every early Arnold Schwarzenegger film. One of my fondest memories is of sitting with my dad and watching Commando. At one point dad turned to me and said, “Did he just kill 100 people all by himself without reloading his gun?” The answer was yes. And, no, we couldn’t change the channel. He watched the whole thing…and the movie that came on after.

So, having developed this early love of bad/unrealistic films, I turned to the Syfy original movies. One debuts tomorrow called Mega Python v. Gatoroid. I am not kidding. And it stars 80s pop stars Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. Again, not kidding. I could not make this stuff up. There was even an article about these Syfy movies in a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly.

My favorite quote from Thomas Vitale, a VP at Syfy:

There’s the campy creatures, like Sharktopus. There’s the supernatural horror movies, like Mothman. There’s action-adventure, like Monsterwolf. And then there’s the very successful unnatural-disaster genre. An unnatural disaster is like a volcano, only a volcano in New York, where you wouldn’t expect one. That’s the twist that makes it a Syfy Saturday night movie.

For the record, the unnatural-disaster movies are my favorites. Mega-earthquakes, meteor atttacks – I love them all.

Don’t judge me.

Sometimes you write a book and worry you didn’t get it quite right. Years ago, before the show Hoarders was on tv, I wrote a book called HOT AS HELL. The heroine in the book is the child of hoarders and she struggles with some OCD issues of her own. Her past haunts her and plays a part in her adult life, no matter how much she tries to overcome it.

I’d dealt with the hoarding issue as a lawyer. It would come up in family dynamics and played a role in several cases where I represented kids in their parents divorce. The book is not based on an actual person. Rather, the idea of hoarding stuck with me. And the HOT AS HELL heroine was born.

Writing about hoarding, an actual disease and a serious one, was a bit scary. It’s not funny and I didn’t want to be insulting. After the book came out I got dinged in a review where the reviewer didn’t like the heroine or understand hoarding. Then I got an email from someone I admire who told me about a hoarding issue in her family. She assured me I nailed the family member of a hoarder’s feelings just right. I can’t tell you how good that felt. That’s why I was especially moved when I read an article by Sarah Wendell (of Smart Bitches) in Kirkus Reviews. She talks about not being able to finish HOT AS HELL because it hit too close to home. She said the writing was “too vivid.” While I’m sorry she skipped the end of the book, I appreciated this comment:

Another book I couldn’t finish or review was HelenKay Dimon’s Hot as Hell (Kensington Brava, 2008). The heroine is the daughter of a hoarding couple—yes, like on TV, those people who don’t throw anything out and have 6,000 cats. Dimon’s heroine was struggling with her own OCD tendencies (hoarding is a manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder, to my understanding) and struggling to separate from her parents and the effects of their hoarding. Stuff took on impossibly complex meanings for the heroine, and on top of the plot of the book, her private struggle with her feelings of rage and helplessness, both against her parents and at herself, was totally overwhelming for me. I’ve long struggled with a hoarding member of my family, and it is so not easy. I can’t watch the shows about it without getting nauseated and wanting to throw up or hurl breakable objects. Dimon captured the rage and helplessness and sorrow in the heroine that again, I couldn’t separate long enough because I was seeing too much of my personal experience in a romance. And I didn’t want my review to veer repeatedly into whether I thought, based on my own perspective, Dimon got the details or the feelings or the experience or the reality “right.” [emphasis added]

I can’t think of a nicer compliment. Thank you, Sarah.

Today’s snippet is on the topic of bad moods. Oh, do I have a lot of heroes that fit that bill. They tend to get grumpy when things don’t go their way. In the case of my upcoming February release, GUNNING FOR TROUBLE, Caleb gets testy when his ex-girlfriend and former boss breaks into this condo. He’s funny about things like that.

Easing into the hallway, Caleb hesitated just long enough for his eyes to fully adjust to the dark. He stepped around the floor area designed to give away his location and headed down the short corridor to the open area. From there he could see every angle of the condo.

A shuffling noise sounded in front of him. His gaze swept over the family room and into the small kitchen area on his left.

Nothing.

Well, nothing at eye level. A quick survey of the floor told him what he needed to know. Not that he could see the intruder. But the guy had made a mistake. The slimmest edge of a canvas bag stuck out from behind the couch. Could be a trap but there were only a few places for someone to spring up from behind him and Caleb had his ankle wedged against the laundry door just in case someone managed to curl up in there and hide. That left the few feet of space between the couch and the television.

The rat-a-tat drumming of energy pounded through Caleb. He didn’t waste one more second waiting to get shot first. He ducked down, using the piece of furniture as a shield. Him on one side and the target on the other. In one smooth move, he launched his body up over the top of the sofa. The first grab turned up only air. He stretched forward on the second lunge, saw a flash of brown hair and then grabbed a shirt collar and pulled back. Caleb shoved his gun into the intruder’s temple just as the screaming started.

He was she. A very pissed off she.

Arms and legs thrashed. Books from his coffee table fell to the floor as she kicked out, missing the television by inches. Fingernails scraped against his forearm. When she bit him, he shoved her away. She lost her balance, careening right for the plasma screen but she caught herself in time. She spun around, her eyes wide with shock and chest rising and falling in a rhythm guaranteed to bring on a heart attack.

Identifying the threat almost did it for him. It was as if the blood stammered to a halt in his veins. “Avery?”

“Caleb?”

His muscles burned from the quick diversion from the fight. “Uh, yeah.”

“Why are you sneaking around?”

Avery Walker, former boss and lover. She fired him exactly two years ago next month. He dumped her right after. They’d carefully avoided each other ever since. “That’s my question. It’s four in the morning.”

“I know.”

“And how did you get into my house?”

“I can explain.”

His breathing finally pulled back to near-normal levels. “You bet you will. And while you’re at it, tell me what you’re doing here.”

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Don’t forget to check out the other Snippet blogs:

Lauren Dane
Leah Braemel
Mari Carr
Delilah Devlin
Eliza Gayle
McKenna Jeffries
Taige Crenshaw
Lissa Matthews
Shelli Stevens
Emma Petersen
Jody Wallace

I am blogging today at Get Lost In A Story. I did an interview and will be there chatting all day. Stop by and say hello…and you could win a copy of UNDER THE GUN.

Friday and Saturday were pretty terrible around my house. The weekend started out okay then my super fit, very healthy, half-marathon-running hubby started experiencing numbness in his ear and face. He decided to make a quick trip to the doctor in case it was a pinched nerve and he needed some meds. I was at home writing when I got the first text about the doctor sending the hubby to the hospital for tests. The next text from the hubby talked about being in ER and strapped to machines. By the time I got the hospital, my hubby’s blood pressure had soared and the ER doctor was talking about the possibility my very healthy hubby who just turned 43 had suffered a stroke.

The next five hours in the ER were just plain awful. I was desperately worried, the place was a madhouse of noise and activity, the guy two spaces down coded and the ER doc just keep giving us bad news. The hubby had to stay the night. There was talk of tests and operations. Our friends and family rallied around with love and support. Friends who live hours away offered to drive in and folks closer to home asked to come and help. It was reminder of why we surround ourselves with the incredible people we have in our lives. I am grateful to all of them.

I’m also grateful to the amazing hospital team and the wonderful news that the hubby didn’t have a stroke, is fine and is now back home with me. I’m also grateful for everything else. You realize how lucky you are in times like these. One moment of clarity came from an unexpected place. The man sharing the room with my hubby was homeless. While we waited impatiently for the hubby to be discharged on Saturday night, the man in the next bed didn’t have anywhere else to go. At least in the hospital he could sleep and get three meals. He was gratious with the staff and spent most of his stay alseep. The only thing I heard him ask for was a shower. It was a humbling moment.

So, today I’m grateful. We have our health, our lives, our home, our family and friends, and each other. That’s a pretty great deal.

Have some more news on my newest release (as in it came out yesterday), GUNS AND THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. There is a fabulous review up on The Good, The Bad and The Unread. Here’s the first paragraph:

Get ready for one hell of a ride. HelenKay Dimon puts the gloves on, throws punches of action at readers one-two, one-two and never lets up until the bad guys are down and out. You have to hang onto your hats at the risk of being tossed out of the ring at the rate the action moves in this book. Fastfastfast. I held on for dear life and cheered every darned minute of it.

Love that!

I’m also guest blogging at the site today about pacing. Check it out!

GUNS AND THE GIRL NEXT DOOR is officially out – wahoo!!!

I have seen some early reviews of it. Here’s a taste:

Wendy the Super Librarian says:

I’ve always considered myself, in my heart, a mystery/suspense girl. I discovered the romance genre later in life, and while I love it with all my heart, sometimes I just want the thrill read. I want villains, hand-to-hand combat, and fast-paced action. This series has been giving me that. They’re fun. They’re exciting. They’re what I consider perfect vacation reads. And oh happy day, the next three installments are all due out in 2011.

Lori at I Just Finished Reading…:

Another strong book from Dimon, with a messy hero and the heroine he relies on for so much.

You can learn more about the Mystery Men miniseries and enter to win a copy of GUNS AND THE GIRL NEXT DOOR at Novel Thoughts and Book Talk. Check it out!

We have a winner to the Megan Hart Spotlight contest. Congrats to Maggie Parke (comment #15)!! Email me with your address and I’ll get the book out to you.

Wendy the Super Librarian named her Best Reads of 2010. And…HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO made the list!! Wahoo!! Here is what Wendy says:

I read a mess of books by Dimon this year, but this was the first one and dang, it knocked my socks off. I loved the adversarial relationship between the hero and heroine. I loved the dark (holy cow, dark!) romantic suspense platform. I loved the sexy, sizzling banter. This book reminded me of how great the Brava line can be when there’s a good writer delivering the story.

This makes me positively gleeful. Thank you, Wendy!