HelenKay Dimon

I was putting together a short visual version of WHEN SHE WASN’T LOOKING like I did for my October release (tentatively titles LEAN ON ME) here and came across something that made me chuckle. When you publish with Harlequin you fill out information for the cover. It’s called the Art Fact Sheet (AFS) and it’s actually many sheets. One of the things Harlequin asks for is links to photos for what we think the main characters look like, if you can find them.

So, this is the photo I used for Jonas, my hero:

Here is Harlequin’s version:

I like them both.

Today’s topic is love scenes. Yeah, it’s actually hard to pick just one of those. Since WHEN SHE WASN’T LOOKING comes out in a few weeks, I decided to give you another peek.

Jonas sat at his dining room table and tapped his pen against the wood. The rhythmic clicking soothed him. Exhaustion tugged at every bone in his body, but he fought it off. He needed answers. Courtney needed answers.

As if he conjured her up, she slipped into the room. She’d showered again and the dampness still clung to bottom of her hair. Her sweats balanced low on her slim hips, teasing him with a sliver of skin between the edge and the bottom of her body-skimming t-shirt.

This time she wore glasses. The thin dark frames gave her a naughty librarian look.

He hadn’t been kidding when he said glasses were sexy on a woman. Or maybe he just thought it and forgot to actually tell her. Either way, he believed it.
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I’m on a countdown until the release of my May Intrigue, WHEN SHE WASN’T LOOKING. Lori at I Just Finished Reading has a very nice review of the book. This is my favorite part:

I liked the smart characters, the romance was great if incredibly fast, and I adore Dimon’s writing style, her voice, and the fact that her heroes come across as real. They are exhausted, they get hurt, and they manage to rely on their women, knowing that they are also super smart & capable.

That is exactly what I was going for, so I loved that she got that from the book. Yay!

I’m at Genreality today talking about what happnes the few days after the deadline is over.

I just finished and turned in a book that will come out October 22nd from Carina Press. It’s tentatively called LEAN ON ME and is related to last year’s novella, IT’S NOT CHRISTMAS WITHOUT YOU. Here’s a visual for you:

Cassidy

is experiencing a string of bad luck and returns home to Holloway, West Virginia to regroup.

She runs into Mitch, a guy who had a thing for her in high school

and after much wrangling and chasing, she ends up staying at his house (because she has no money and nowhere else to go).

She is a professional climber

and he’s a business dude who hates heights (he never wears suits but the photo is good).

These two are in for a ride.

Today’s topic deals with villains. I have a few of those. Since WHEN SHE WASN’T LOOKING comes out in a few weeks, I thought I’d highlight a baddies from that one. Here is a scene with the first of several bad guys.

She turned to see what had him swearing. “I don’t see-”

“Where did he come from?” Jonas’ hands tightened on the wheel. As he started shouting, his knuckles turned white.

She watched in horror as a truck with a huge front grill barreled right at them on her side of the car. It appeared out of nowhere, gobbling up branches and dragging them under its tires.

She sat down hard in the seat facing forward and dropped the gun to the floor. With her arms locked, she balanced her palms against the dashboard. “Move!”

“I see it.”

“He’s going to hit us.”
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I just read a book that had a few issues for me as a reader. I thought I’d share.

1. I hated the heroine. No, really, hated her. I’m not one of those who needs a romance heroine to be perfect. I actually want them imperfect. In fact, I get grumbly when romance reviews forgive the nasty hero anything he does but take issue with a heroine for being human. I tend to think the term TSTL (too stupid to live) is thrown around far too often in relation to heroines when it really doesn’t apply [pet peeve alert]. I think the main issue in this book was her lack of a believable character arc. She started out unlikable, which was fine, but I didn’t really get a sense of any redemption or growth. That made the HEA hard to buy.

2. The secondary storyline, which happened to be between two males, was pretty awesome. It actually overwhelmed the main romance for me. I did that thing where I flipped pages looking for the secondary romance and wondering when it would be on the page again. That’s never a good sign for the main romance.

3. In that secondary romance, there is a scene where all is lost. It’s basically a deathbed scene. Much to my annoyance, this huge emotional plot point resolved off the page. The reader finds out because the main characters are told the secondary romance people are fine. I had the “What the hell?!?!” reaction followed by flipping the final pages to see if the book returned to the seconday romance before it ended, but no…

This is clearly one of those cases where I wanted to rewrite the ending of a book so that it fit my vision. Yeah, I know that’s wrong. It’s not my book. But still.

I’m at Genreality today talking about the best and worst writing advice I’ve ever gotten. Stop by and say hello.

While I don’t have a burning need to see the movie Titanic again, I do continue to be fascinated by the true-life stories of the ship. Apparently the fictional stories about tragedies also still resonate with me. I know that because I saw a review for Charlotte Rogan’s new book, THE LIFEBBOAT, and wanted to try it. Check it out:

Grace Winter, 22, is both a newlywed and a widow. She is also on trial for her life.

As the castaways battle the elements, and each other, Grace recollects the unorthodox way she and Henry met, and the new life of privilege she thought she’d found. Will she pay any price to keep it?

And I like the cover. It gives me the willies, which is perfect for the book’s subject matter.

I can finally announce some sale news. Some of you have asked if I’ll be writing more books for Carina Press. The answer is…yes!! I’ve already announced that I’ll have a book out in October. I will also have a Christmas story in an anthology with Jaci Burton and Christi Barth – wahoo!!! The holiday anthology (you can buy my book as an individual novella or as part of the anthology) will be out in December. The books are related to each other and to my Christmas novella from last year, IT’S NOT CHRISTMAS WITHOUT YOU.

So, the series looks like this (please excuse the lack of official titles):

*IT’S NOT CHRISTMAS WITHOUT YOU – Austin & Carrie’s story

*October release – Mitch (Carrie’s brother) & Cassidy’s story

*December release – Spencer (Austin’s brother) & Lila’s story

The October and December releases will be set back home in my fictional town of Holloway, West Virginia. If you need a visual image for what Holloway looks like in fall, I give you this: