by Wendy Warren, author of The Cowboy’s Convenient Bride and the FREE online read, Daniel’s Gift.

I have a friend who gets hives at the thought of living in a small town. Not I. Even though I’ve lived in cities most of my life, in my mind I live in an endless episode of The Andy Griffith Show. LOL!

For a very sweet while, I did live in a kind of latter-day Mayberry. A small town in Oregon still so innocent that the mayor’s giant squash was the lead story on the local news one night.

Twice a day in the summer, horses clopped down our block pulling a carriage, and in December the locals, dressed in elaborate Victorian costumes, handed out hot cider and chestnuts on the street corner.

I could look out the window of our “downtown” cottage and see a dozen deer strolling through the front yard. Heaven.

Marrying my true love dictated a return to larger towns and cities, a trade-off I happily accept, but I’ll never forget the gift of that town.

Home Sweet Honeyford is the series I’ve wanted to write for a long time.

I based it, of course, on that great little town, as it was when I lived there eighteen years ago—tons of character, a bit quirky, rich with caring. I’ve populated Honeyford with locals and transplants from the city, people who have lots of differences, but one thing in common: They’re looking for someone to witness their lives. To say, “You count, and, by the way, I love you.”

It doesn’t matter where we live, most of us want that. But getting there…whew. Not always easy, is it? Which is why I love writing about the journey. And why I’m glad that my next three romances are set in Honeyford, because in that kind of community, there’s always somewhere soft to land. Someone to whom you can turn when the path toward true love becomes too hard to walk alone.

Do you live in a sweet, supportive community? What I’m discovering is that we can create that comfort wherever we are. Today I’ve found my Mayberry in the middle of a busy city. I’d love to hear about where you live and how you create community in your life.

My husband, daughter and I recently visited the little town that left such a big impression on me. It’s different now. Upscale shops have moved in. New homes abound. The old building where we ate popcorn and watched live melodrama is long gone, replaced by a gorgeous retirement home. Hmm…maybe someday….

In the meantime, I love going to work in Honeyford when I sit down at the computer.  I hope you’ll like “living” there awhile, too, getting to know Claire and Fletcher, Rosemary and Dean, and Gabby and Cal as they find each other and a place to call home. And here’s a sneak peek of Daniel’s Gift, Elliana and Daniel’s story, available now on eHarlequin.com:

Elliana Goldman has always longed for a big family of her own. Though a man to love was always part of the dream, at the age of thirty five, with no prospects of romance looming, Elliana is ready to create life, not wait for it to happen. She’s not against using an anonymous donor, but she’d rather hand-pick her baby’s father. And something tells her former classmate—and one time crush–Daniel Bowman is the right man for the job.

Daniel has a reputation in Honeyford for being unwilling to commit to anything more than breakfast, but the truth is a little more complicated than that. He’s not a man who takes family lightly, so he’s floored when Elliana asks him to father a child, no strings attached. And he’s even more surprised when his growing attraction to her has him tempted to agree to make a baby—the old fashioned way!

Welcome to Home Sweet Honeyford!

by Rick Mofina, author of The Panic Zone, a brand new release in the Jack Gannon series

Some years ago, I found myself in Kingston, Jamaica sitting in the back of a pick-up truck next to a police sergeant.

He was wearing dark glasses, khaki pants and a T-shirt as he slid a clip of bullets into his 9 mm semi-automatic pistol. Beside him, another Jamaican cop in blue fatigues did the same with his M-16 rifle.

The sound of locking and loading echoed across the downtown police compound as some twenty members of the Jamaican Constabulary Force’s elite task force on violent crime prepared for drug raids in Kingston’s toughest slums. As an observer on the patrol, I was permitted to ride in the rear of a small truck, positioned as the sixth vehicle in a seven-car squad.

While waiting for the convoy to roll, the squad’s supervisor approached me to advise that the drug dealers usually shoot at the lead cars.

“If you hear gunfire, get down.”

It seems like a lifetime ago but the memory takes me back to the mid 1990s. I was on assignment for my newspaper to research the life of a disgraced ex-Jamaican cop who came to Canada and murdered a Canadian police officer during a routine traffic stop.

Here I was, dispatched to the Caribbean and one of the most beautiful countries on earth, to dig into a killer’s criminal past. My assignment took me into Jamaica’s netherworld where some of the things I saw haunt me to this day. Like so many experiences I had as a reporter, they became part of the fabric of my crime fiction.

During my time in Jamaica, I often did not know who the good cops were and who were corrupt. I did not know which officers were friends of my subject nor in whose hands I had placed myself.

I was on edge, even with the heavily-armed task force.

As we weaved through the ghettos with their pungent rubbish fires and throbbing reggae music, the menace I felt increased.

A hush fell over the convoy as we crawled into Grants Pen, one of the capital’s worst slums. The task force had killed 22 suspects across Jamaica in the previous 18 months and gunfights were common here.

We were being watched. The officers caressed their triggers as we inched by columns of smoke. Children laughed by a water pipe.

We stopped and detectives did some door-to-door work before other officers took down a marijuana garden while the owner shouted her protests and music hammered the air.

That’s when two stone-faced white men with dark glasses materialized from the lead cars, came over to me and asked me who I was.

I told them I was a reporter, asked who they were and for an interview.

“Put your notebook away,” one of them snapped. “We’re not here.”

No one would divulge to me who they were until later one Jamaican detective told me the two white men were from the CIA and they were working on something.

That incident stayed with me.

This was no movie. No TV show. This was real and it got me thinking about the ghost work that is actually carried out in some corners of the world.

Creatively, a seed had been planted.

Over the years, I would come back to the incident and several others I had experienced as a journalist, drawing on them for Jack Gannon, the hero of my newest series.

Readers met Gannon when the first book in the series, Vengeance Road, was released in 2009. The International Thriller Writers named Vengeance Road a finalist for a 2010 Thriller Award in the category of Best Paperback Original.

Gannon, who had a blue-collar upbringing in Buffalo, N.Y., was striving to escape his troubled newspaper, The Buffalo Sentinel, to work for the World Press Alliance, a global wire service based in Manhattan.

For the next book, The Panic Zone, he needed a new assignment.

I wanted him to go global.

I reached into my travels as a journalist and employed my imagination until a story emerged for the next book.

Picture this: A windswept reach of Wyoming and a young mother, Emma Lane, thrown clear of a devastating car crash that killed her husband. Dazed, she sees a figure pull her infant son from the flames. Or does she? Police believe it’s a case of trauma playing cruel tricks on her mind, until the night Emma, in her anguish, hears a voice through the phone, “Your baby is alive.”

A world away a bomb explodes in a Rio de Janeiro café, killing ten people including two journalists with the World Press Alliance. Jack Gannon’s first international assignment is to find out whether his colleagues were innocent victims or targets who got too close to a story.

The story leads Gannon around the world, including one exotic location where he encounters a shadowy U.S. intelligence agent who points him to the truth about the resurrection of long-buried secret scientific research; research that is now about to be used as a deadly weapon.

With millions of lives at stake, Gannon and others work frantically against time. And as Emma searches for her child and Gannon hunts for the truth, an unstoppable force hurls them all into The Panic Zone.

by Eve Silver, author of Sin’s Daughter and the Otherkin trilogy to be released starting in August with Sins of the Heart

I write dark. Sin’s Daughter, the e-prequel to my upcoming Otherkin trilogy, opens with the hero’s death (no spoiler there. You find that out on page one.) Sins of the Heart, the first book in the trilogy opens with—

No. That would be a spoiler. I’ll let you read it for yourself.

Funny thing is, I started out with the goal of writing light. The first manuscript I ever completed was for Harlequin’s Love and Laughter line way back in the 90’s. It was called The Cat’s Meow, and it’s buried in the back yard where it belongs. Sadly, it was anything but funny. (Actually, I wrote, and submitted, my first book when I was nine. It was the story of an unwanted teddy bear that found a new and loving home. But that’s another story altogether). Next, I tried my hand at a historical romance. It was supposed to be a light, humorous romp laced with subtle repartee. By the time I finished writing the scene with a moldering corpse in an ancient rotting tower, and the maggots and the…

Well, you get the picture.

Flash forward to spring 2008. I had the seeds of an idea, a dark, gritty series based on villains who are heroes and tough, strong heroines, a world laced with the mythologies of ages past—including Egyptian, Japanese, Greek, Norse—and Underworld gods of incredible power. Sins of the Heart. Sins of the Soul. Sins of the Flesh. And the prequel: Sin’s Daughter. The stories and characters were alive and breathing. The question was: how to write these books? Where would the emphasis be? The external plot? The romance?

There’s a fine line between urban fantasy and paranormal romance, and sometimes it’s tough to differentiate between the two. Generally, urban fantasy has strong world-building, and while there may be strong romantic elements, if the romance was removed from the pages, there would still be a story. On the other hand, in a paranormal romance, the plot centers on the romantic relationship—without it, there’s no story. There are other elements that differentiate: the satisfying ending for the romantic relationship versus the  unresolved-happy-ending, the first person versus third person point of view, the grittiness of the tone, the continuing character arc.

The thing is, no matter how detailed my world-building or how dark my writing voice, I’m the eternal optimist. I love my happy ending and the satisfaction of love found. I couldn’t give that up.

So I didn’t. I matched my enigmatic, sexy heroes with incredibly strong heroines and put them in a dangerous, gritty world of Underworld politics and a very real threat to the world of man. I wrote stories where there’s a strong romance with an equally strong urban fantasy feel. I wrote dark. And I wrote from the heart.

by Shirlee McCoy, author of Running Scared (Love Inspired Suspense July 2010)

As I wrote the proposal for Running Scared, my husband and I were getting ready to travel to China to meet and adopt our seven year old daughter. I’ll never forget the moment she walked into our lives. We were in the lobby of the civil affairs office, and she walked around the corner carrying a strawberry ice cream cone, her white hair cut short and nearly glowing, her clear blue eyes filled with the same anticipation and fear that I felt. She was a stranger. A child who had lived seven years of her life without us, who had a history and experiences that didn’t include us.

And, yet, she was our daughter.

I thought of that moment often while I plotted Kane and Eli Dougherty’s journey. Here was a man who’d nearly given up believing his missing son would be found, a man who’d almost lost hope that a miracle would happen. Five years after his four year old son’s disappearance, he would meet his child again.

His son, but a stranger, too.

As compelling as that moment of meeting would be, I knew that I had to begin their story after the phone call that brought Kane to Deer Park, Washington, and after his initial meeting with his son. Their story, after all, had to be about Maggie Tennyson, as well. It had to build the mystery and romance and the faith that grew as all three characters learned to trust each other. That’s why I was thrilled to be given an opportunity to tell readers more about Eli’s journey and the days that led up to his reunion with his father. My online read, Dangerous Secrets, does just that.

Shauna Trenton is Eli’s teacher and Maggie Tennyson’s friend. She grew up in Deer Park, and her life is as easy and uncomplicated as Maggie’s is difficult and filled with secrets. Levi McCleary is her high school sweetheart, a guy whose big city dreams and need for adventure pulled him from Deer Park and from her life. Now, years after he said goodbye, he’s back.

And Shauna’s not sure she’s happy about it.

She’s given up her dreams of happily-ever-after and is content with life in rural Washington, but even small towns have their secrets, and when danger threatens, Shauna finds that she has no choice but to rely on the one man she swore she’d never trust again.

Enjoy!

by Kristan Higgins, author of All I Ever Wanted, on sale everywhere August 1!

Hello! It’s so nice to be here today! I’m very excited to chat about my new book, All I Ever Wanted. A romantic comedy set in a small town in Vermont…a brooding veterinarian…a sunny heroine…a couple of wicked cute dogs…a quirky family…I hope you’ll have a lot of fun with it!

One of the things I love about this book is, of course, the hero. Ian is a man incapable of lying, even when lying might be a good idea. Ian is honest to a fault…he can’t schmooze, he doesn’t sugarcoat anything, refuses to play along with anything. So different from Callie, who feels the need to make everyone like her. Callie will do just about anything to keep on the sunny side, overlook anything, go to any lengths to paint people in the most flattering light. No matter what life throws at her, Callie’s determined to make lemonade, as it were. Ian—well, Ian seems to prefer animals to humans. He’s a vet for a reason. Theirs is definitely a case of opposites attract. Ian’s been burned in the past, and not in the way you might expect, so he’s rightfully suspicious when Callie turns up in his office to check him out. A single guy in a small town is not going to go unnoticed by the female population, after all!

Another thing I had a lot of fun with in this book was the family, especially Callie’s grandfather, Noah. He’s a crusty old Vermonter who tells it like it is, and Callie adores the guy, even when she’s picking up his dirty dishes. Add Callie’s parents, who are attempting a reconciliation (well, sort of), her older sister, a fertility doctor with a grudge, and Fred, Callie’s wise-cracking baby brother…ah, families! No one loves us or knows us quite the way they do…but no one drives us quite as crazy, either.

As for the pets, well, I’ll admit that I love animals, so writing a vet hero was bound to happen. I’m the proud owner/best friend of Digger, a black lab mutt (I based the dog in my first novel on him). I’m also the obedient servant/doorman for our cat, Cinnamon. In this book, you’ll find Bowie, a dog as cheerful as his owner, and the rather perfect and elegant Angie, who fits Ian’s life to a T. Including pets in a story was a natural thing for me…owning a pet shows a commitment to another living creature, a selflessness and gives a person companionship, loyalty and friendship. Who doesn’t want all those nice things, right?

I hope you’ll enjoy All I Ever Wanted and can’t wait to hear some of your comments, answer some of your questions and hear about what you love in a romance. Thanks for dropping by!

To celebrate the upcoming release of All I Ever Wanted, we’re giving away five sample copies of the book, which includes an excerpt from both All I Ever Wanted and The Next Best Thing, as well as a coupon for $1 off the purchase price of All I Ever Wanted. To enter, please leave a comment about your favorite pet on this blog post before 12:00 AM EST Monday, July 26th. Unfortunately, the contest is only open to residents of the U.S. as the coupon is only valid there. Click here for full contest rules.

by Anne Stuart, author of The Wicked House of Rohan and Ruthless

Beginning with The Wicked House of Rohan (a FREE online prequel to my Fall 2010 historical romances) I pose this question.

Answer: It all depends on who blinks first. I tend to specialize in dark heroes—men who kill and women who love them—but they tend to show up in my contemporaries, not my historicals.  Dangerous spies and assassins have a good excuse for their darkness, what with saving the free world and all that.

But how do you carry off a decadent aristocrat who’s rich, gorgeous, and fabulous in bed, but is still bad, bad, bad?

I’ve done it before, looong ago, with a couple of out of print romances that still get mentioned by some as standouts in the genre.  But more recently my historical heroes were charmers, rakes and knights.

But then came the House of Rohan. Thoroughly bad men who are nonetheless irresistible.  First comes Alistair in The Wicked House of Rohan, lounging in Venice, seducing a down-on-her-luck governess and helping to form the notorious Heavenly Host, my take on the Hellfire Club.   He’s a bit of a charmer and sets the Rohan lineage down a path of excess and notoriety that will have repercussions for generations (and books!) to come.

Next comes Viscount Francis Rohan (Ruthless, August 2010), the survivor of Culloden and thoroughly decadent exile in France, whom I didn’t think was all that wicked, despite Publisher’s Weekly’s horror. (So read the RT review instead—they think it’s wonderful!)

As for Adrian, Francis’s son (Reckless, September 2010), he’s just an overgrown, naughty libertine, not particularly caring whose life he ruins in the pursuit of pleasure.

By the time we get to his daughter (Breathless, October 2010), some of the wickedness has run out.  The infusion of solid, loving women into our heroes’ lives is bound to improve things.  But the Rohans are still a bit headstrong, and Adrian Rohan’s daughter is bound to get in trouble.  Her hero, a thoroughly wicked gentleman known as The Scorpion, makes the Rohans look like perfect gentlemen, but a Rohan knows how to handle a Scorpion.

So how bad are these heroes?  Francis Rohan is known as the King of Hell.  He runs orgies, kills men in cold blood and blackmails the heroine into sleeping with him.

Adrian is more straightforward.  His heroine comes to observe an orgy, thinking she’ll be safe, and he carries her off, keeping her captive and introducing her to all sorts of delicious wickedness, then abandoning her.

Whereas the Scorpion, scarred and dissolute, is out for revenge and considers Miranda Rohan to be the perfect vessel for that revenge, and he doesn’t care how much he hurts her.

Whether these men manage to be redeemed is a matter of opinion.  How bad they truly are is also a question of perception.  I’ve always figured that the badder they are, the harder they fall, and my bad, bad heroes fall very hard for my strong heroines.  In the end it makes the redemption that much sweeter.  If you can handle a dark hero in the first place.

by Stella MacLean, author of A Child Changes Everything (Harlequin Superromance August 2010)

Like many writers, I’m often asked about the source of inspiration for stories.

In my life, stories are waiting everywhere I look, but one of my preferred sources can be found amongst the people who populate my life.

In A Child Changes Everything, Lisa Clarke finds herself suddenly responsible for a toddler, her sister’s little girl.  Lisa’s journey, from an anxiety-ridden young woman to someone who couldn’t imagine her life without a child, is a very special story.

So, where did I find my inspiration for A Child Changes Everything?

Well, let’s see.  I’m very fortunate to have many little people in my life who view their world from their own unique perspective.  Yet, what they all share is their ability to see life not through the filters of adulthood, but through the direct and open approach of a child.

One of my little friends is a six-year-old, who explained one day to his grandfather, “I’m six and I’m staying six.”  Surprised and curious, his grandfather asked his granddaughter what her brother meant.  She offered this by way of explanation.  “The other day Mom told him that he’d be in jail by the time he was twelve, if he kept doing the things he was doing.”  So you see, the answer was simple—remain six.

Now fashion is often a subject of interest to many little girls.  One day a very unique five-year-old with her own very distinct sense of fashion was outside playing with an older, more world-wary seven-year-old.  When the five-year-old displayed her latest fashion accomplishment, namely wearing one yellow and one hot pink flip-flop, her shocked older playmate offered this pearl of wisdom.  “If you’re too fancy, you’ll never get a husband.”

A beautiful, funny little eight-year-old girl who has a distinct preference when it comes to her day was walking to school one morning and was overheard telling her friend, “I don’t do mornings.  I wish school started after lunch.”

On the subject of school, one of my little people started school, and for several days dutifully went to the large brick building a few blocks away.  When he was asked how he liked school, he responded as only a six-year-old kid could.  “Fine, but how much longer do I have to do this?”

One day our son was scolding his children about something, when one of the six-year-old twins from the back seat of the van offered the perfect defense.  “Dad, we’re just kids.”

I was driving my four-year-old granddaughter after a downpour in which a huge rainbow formed in the sky just ahead of us.  From the backseat, a little voice asked, “Grammy, what makes a rainbow?”  I began my long explanation about water and light, when I was interrupted again from the back seat with this: “No Grammy, it comes from the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, didn’t you know that?”

One of my all time favorites was the day our five-year-old granddaughter was ruminating on the whole issue of how much her grandparents loved her.  Finally after much thought, she said to her mother, “If Grammy and Grampy love me so much, why don’t they have kids of their own?”

Children do see life just as it is—no frills, no complicated explanations.  They simply take the moment as it comes.  Wouldn’t we all love to see life this way?

Do you have stories about the little people in your life?

by Victoria Dahl, special contributor to Daily Net
RICHMOND, Virginia — Daily Net
Published on Wednesday, Jul. 07, 2010 10:14AM EDT
Last updated on Wednesday, Jul. 07, 2010 10:28AM EDT

Where in the world is Chloe Turner? Less than a week before her fiancé’s day of reckoning in a Virginia courthouse, the infamous Bridezilla is nowhere to be found. Her family denies knowing her location, but at least one of them is concerned. “I don’t know what’s going on with her,” cousin Tiffany Capshaw says. “She won’t call me back now that the wedding’s off. I just want to know how she’s doing, but she refuses to return my calls.”

It’s unlikely that ex-fiancé Thomas DeLorn has any idea where she is either. By all accounts, Chloe has not contacted him since the world discovered that he’d survived the plane crash that destroyed his Piper Aircraft in the depths of the Great Dismal Swamp. “They haven’t spoken,” a source close to the runaway groom has said. “It’s really weird.” Why? Because Thomas and Chloe would’ve been on their honeymoon this week. But while Thomas prepares to face possible felony charges related to his escape from the engagement, not to mention a possible civil suit over search and rescue costs, Chloe Turner maintains her silence.

Thomas has released the occasional statement, but Chloe hasn’t said a word about either his ill-planned escape from their engagement or the charges that she pushed him to that recklessness with her increasingly overbearing behavior.

“She was impossible,” cousin Tiffany claims. “She was always a little stuck up, but once the wedding plans started, you’d have thought she was marrying the president of England.” England, of course, doesn’t have a president, but Tiffany clarified her statement. “Everything had to be perfect. The groomsmen had to be handsome. Her bridesmaids couldn’t be fat. I found out why she didn’t ask me. I’m too short. She said I’d throw off the pattern from medium to tall. I heard she rejected another friend because her complexion clashed with the dresses Chloe wanted.”

Despite the stories of tantrums and bad behavior, a few people deny that Chloe was a Bridezilla at all. “It’s ridiculous!” best friend Jenn Castellan shouted when pressed for a comment. “She’s never been anything but nice. Never!” Jenn, who recently accused the paparazzi of chasing Chloe Turner down like a wild animal, has been her constant defender, but even she can’t explain what could’ve driven a man to fake his own death in order to escape a perfectly nice girl. “You’ll have to ask Thomas,” was her terse reply.

But Thomas has been a gentleman, at least in that regard. He has yet to comment on any of the stories about Chloe’s alleged mood swings, and a new story seems to emerge every day. “She seemed nice at first,” said LaShawna Hays, who sold Chloe Turner her wedding dress. As owner of Unique Bridal, she’s had years of experience with every type of Bridezilla, but says her internal alarms didn’t go off at first. “She came in with Thomas the first time. He was sweet to her, and she acted pretty excited.” But as the weeks went on, LaShawna explained, Chloe started making demands. “She wanted changes made to the dress, but when something didn’t turn out the way she wanted, she lost it. I never saw Thomas with her again.”

Of course, brides are under an enormous amount of pressure, explains Hollywood psychologist Harold Woolsey. “For aggressive, perfectionist personalities, this can push them to a sort of emotional break. They need the day to be perfect. They can’t accept that mistakes are inevitable. So they force everyone around them to perfection too. But once the wedding plans are in place, the idea of stopping the process is a devastating prospect. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Mr. DeLorn simply felt he had no other option but to disappear.”

The world first became aware of Thomas when his small plane crashed into Virginia’s Great Dismal Swamp. Rescue crews searched the dense woods for two days, assuming he’d wandered injured from the plane. But authorities soon found clues that Thomas hadn’t been in the plane when it crashed. The four-day manhunt for the missing bridegroom captivated the nation, and the mystery only deepened when he was found lounging on a beach in Florida.

Clearly, Thomas DeLorn was in dire straits when he chose to parachute out of his personal plane and make a run for it. But what, exactly, was going on behind the scenes? He’s already been charged with fraud, but we’ll undoubtedly find out more on Monday when the Commonwealth of Virginia is expected to file additional charges against Thomas DeLorn. The District Attorney is being close-lipped, but there’s increasing talk that Thomas received help.

“He was waiting for someone,” says an anonymous source who works at the beachside resort where Thomas hid during his disappearance. “He looked relaxed the first couple of days, and then he started getting nervous. He kept wandering into the lobby, trying to look casual.” Pictures of Thomas taken in Florida show him wearing sunglasses and a hat as he relaxes near the water. There’s no word on whether the tropical drink in his hand was a nod toward celebration or stress relief. One thing we do know for sure, Thomas wasn’t planning on returning to Virginia. He’d registered at the hotel under the name Simon Bale, and arrest reports confirm that he was found with thousands of dollars in cash. The charges on Monday may reveal more details of his plans to escape the clutches of his crazed bride.

So where is the spurned Bridezilla? Despite rumors that she’d decided to take her honeymoon without the groom, Daily Net can confirm that Chloe is not at the luxury resort in Hawaii where she was supposed to spend her first two weeks of wedded bliss. “Those reservations were canceled,” says a hotel spokesperson.

A fellow employee at the accounting firm where Chloe Turner works has confirmed her disappearance and that of her friend, Jenn Castellan. “They’re out of town,” the anonymous source alleged. “Partying. A girls’ week. They were planning to celebrate.” But what could Chloe have to celebrate the week before her fiancé faces such dire consequences? “I heard she got an offer from Playboy,” the coworker revealed. “But I don’t know about that. She’s kind of average.”

Average or not, Chloe Turner has captivated the nation’s attention. By all accounts, the couple was perfectly normal before the proposal. A video of the engagement party shows a cheerful woman toasting her future husband before draining the whole glass of champagne. But only eight months later, Thomas DeLorn would risk death rather than face the terror of calling off the wedding. What changed for this couple? What secrets have yet to be revealed?

Stay tuned to Daily Net for daily breaking news on the Bridezilla scandal, the trial, and the search for Chloe Turner.

Better yet, check out the brand new release from author Victoria Dahl, Crazy for Love.

by Linda Fildew, Senior Editor

We have celebrated some significant milestones over the last few years: Mills & Boon’s 100^th anniversary in 2008, Harlequin’s 60^th anniversary in 2009 and now Harlequin Historical reaches its 1000^th book in July 2010 with Christine Merrill’s deliciously sensual Paying the Virgin’s Price, part of our Regency Silk & Scandal miniseries.

1,000 books – 2,000 years of history featured in Harlequin Historical. We encourage a range of time periods so our novels can be set anywhere from ancient civilisations such as Greece and Rome up to the Second World War.

Mills & Boon launched their historical line – Masquerade – in 1977 with novels by such authors as Jane Wilby – Eleanor and the Marquis – and Marguerite Bell – A Rose for Danger. These London-acquired books were published almost simultaneously by Harlequin, although the covers were different for each market.

The UK & US Covers of Eleanor & the Marquis

It was from July 1988 that Harlequin launched what we know today as Harlequin Historical with books mostly acquired from an American author base. The first two were Satan’s Angel by Kristin James (aka Candace Camp) and Kathleen Eagle’s Private Treaty. Both books were Westerns and established early on readers’ love of the nineteenth century frontier settings. There’s something about the rawness of frontier life, living on the edge of danger, that truly captures the imagination. Westerns still form a key part of the present-day program.

Early Harlequin Historical releases

American settings predominated in the early years of Harlequin Historical although, gradually, other periods were added – e.g. Nora Roberts was the first to introduce a Scottish Highland setting with her Rebellion. The Regency period also proved highly popular and so it has remained to this day.

All our authors are skillful at drawing readers into their characters’ world and effortlessly holding them there from first to last page. Emotions run high. How better to spend a few hours of your time! We know how important authentic historical backgrounds are and our authors find just the right balance between the vivid setting and the stirring romance.

We are proud of the variety we offer in Harlequin Historical from classic Regency drawing room tales to ones which explore the risky underbelly of London life. From Medieval warriors and Viking conquerors to Chinese warlords and Byzantine barbarians, we have books – and sexy heroes! – to suit every mood. In the same month as our 1000th book by Christine Merrill we can tempt you with Alaska Bride on the Run by western author Kate Bridges; strong, sexy heroes in Bronwyn Scott’s Regency Untamed Rogue, Scandalous Mistress and Terri Brisbin’s Medieval The Mercenary’s Bride. Mary Nichols has a hero in conflict in Honorable Doctor, Improper Arrangement and June Francis’s hero flirts with danger in Pirate’s Daughter, Rebel Wife. The Chinese Tang Dynasty is an exciting new time period for us, one that we have never published before. We are happy to announce that we are publishing Jeannie Lin’s award winning Butterfly Swords in October.

As well as the six Harlequin Historicals a month – 4 in Retail and 2 available through eHarlequin.com and Harlequin Reader Service – we also have an online exclusive program called Harlequin Historical Undone! These short, sexy, scandalous stories appear in ebook format. These can feature any time period and you will find that we are exploring new areas – look for our vampire Undone! with Marguerite Kaye’s Bitten by Desire and how about some Sheikh delight in Innocent in the Harem by Michelle Willingham and Arabian Nights With a Rake by Bronwyn Scott! These tasty short bites of stories are just the right pick me up read over a lunchtime or before tucking down for the night.

There’s no better time than now to start reading Harlequin Historical if you haven’t already tried one. Get caught up in our latest miniseries Silk & Scandal, I promise you won’t be able to put these seductive books down.

I’d like to thank all of the authors and readers who have contributed to the success of the first 1000 books in Harlequin Historical. Here’s to the next 1000!

by Andrea Kerr, Producer

Sophisticated man of the world? Check. Captivating woman? Check. Glamorous, international settings? Check. Passion and seduction? Guaranteed! July’s Special Event Read on eHarlequin.com has all the things readers adore about the Harlequin Presents series. But the best part? It’s an exclusive prequel to the all-new continuity, The Balfour Brides! Scandal at the Balfour Ball will be available July 1 on eHarlequin.com!

Here’s a sneak peek of the FREE story by beloved author Michelle Reid:

After barely a year of marriage, Alessandro and Meredith Ferrera’s relationship is already strained by careers that force them to live in different countries for weeks at a time. So it doesn’t take much to raise Alessandro’s suspicions about what his bride is up to with his best friend Marco when he’s not around!

Meredith Ferrera doesn’t know what’s gotten into her husband. When she calls him in Milan to tell him some important news, she’s discouraged by his surly attitude and veiled accusations. And when he fails to show up in London to escort her to the ball hosted by her illustrious Balfour relations, she quickly discovers the room is abuzz with rumors about the state of their marriage…

Want more? Don’t miss a single, seductive volume (psst, all Presents titles are available a month in advance on eHarlequin.com!)

A powerful dynasty, eight daughters in disgrace…

Mia and the Powerful Greek by Michelle Reid, August 2010

Kat and the Dare-Devil Spaniard by Sharon Kendrick, September 2010

Emily and the Notorious Prince by India Grey, October 2010

Sophie and the Scorching Sciilian by Kim Lawrence, November 2010

Zoe and the Tormented Tycoon by Kate Hewitt, December 2010

Annie and the Red-Hot Italian by Carol Mortimer, January 2011

Bella and the Merciless Sheikh by Sarah Morgan, February 2011

Olivia and the Billionaire Cattle King by Margaret Way, March 2011

First three covers in the series