SquawkRadio

All poor Julius Ceasar had to worry about on the Ides of March was being stabbed in the back by his best friend.  We Squawkers have to worry about that on an hourly basis PLUS cope with these other terrors of the modern world like cellulite and rude cell phone users.  Hope these helpful tips will help you survive your own Ides of March! 

LISA WARNS: 
1. Beware of people who talk on their cell phones in places where you’re forced to listen
2. Beware of all-automated customer phone service when you’d rather talk to a person.
3. Beware of painful lip-plumping products
4. Beware of people applying makeup or otherwise self-grooming while driving
5. Beware of cashiers making snide comments about the romance novel you’re buying when they should be grateful you’re spending your money there!

TERESA WARNS:
1. Beware of that box of Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies that’s been in your freezer since 1978
2. Beware of men who tell you on your first date that you remind them of their mother (or their ex!)
3. Beware of any weight loss plan that promises DRAMATIC RESULTS IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS!!! (when the tiny print at the bottom of the screen says you have to follow a sensible diet and exercise daily)
4. Beware of that pesky strip of toilet paper that insists on following you out of the stall and through the expensive restaurant
5. Beware of desperate romance authors at mall booksignings who offer you candy to come over and fondle their books

CONNIE WARNS:
1. Beware of answering any question that begins with, “Tell me the truth...”
2. Beware of going barefoot to an off-leash dog park.
3. Beware of hair stylists who wants to make you look “sassy.”
4. Beware of one-size fits all anything
5. Beware of cute little girls dressed in khaki uniforms who appear at your door carrying clipboards. If this happens, do not open the door. If you open the door, do not bring your checkbook. If you bring your checkbook you are doomed to spend months of aerobic exercise combating the results of this ill-fated meeting...unless you are Terri, who hides her cookies in the bottom of her freezer (like any cookie could hide from me! :snort)

LIZ WARNS:
1. Beware of the home improvement document that includes the word “estimate.”
2. Beware of the school parent association official who uses the word “volunteer.”
3. Beware of the retail sales associate who, under the fluorescent lights of the fitting room, utters the word “fabulous.”
4. Beware of the twelve-year-old who strings out over several time zones the word “pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaase.”
5. Beware of the kitten who resembles the word “angelic.”

ELOISA WARNS:
1.  Beware of overly wet mascara (like Lancome’s), because life is too short to spend your time looking like an owl.
2.  Beware of anyone who resembles Borat.
3.  Beware of the computer.  (This item added by my daughter, who wants me to read Stuart Little right now.)
4.  Beware of Stuart Little.  There are some children’s classics that are just too weird for words.
5.  Beware of SUGAR DADDY by Lisa Kleypas.  It kept me up half the night and I feel like a frazzled french fry.  And I look like one too.  And I would feel like one, except for this warm romantic glow I got from the book!

CHRISTINA WARNS: 
1. Beware of a cigar-smoking woman named Kitty who claims to be a decorator, moves in, drinks wayyyy too much tequila, and “beautifies” your home. (photo is Xtina’s house.)
2. Beware of the new ballet flats. They may be in style, but remember — you weren’t in ballet for a reason.
3. Beware of looking too closely at current photos of Daniel Radcliffe (especially if there’s a horse involved.)
4. Beware of construction workers who come to your house to sand off the lousy finish on your woodwork and refinish it (when it should have been done right the first time), and when they leave a fine silt shifts out of your airvents for weeks, covering everything with dust including your windows, and all the wall trim, and your new bookshelves and all the books you lovingly placed and the picture frames and the knick-knacks which you have wayyyy too many of, and that metal tree sculpture you accidentally left up in the entry which is made of wires and how are you supposed to dust that?
5. Beware of husbands who promise to dust your metal tree sculpture with the air compressor of his nail gun.

So have you ever experienced any of these horrors?  And if you could warn the Squawkers and your fellow Squawkees about something they should beware on the Ides of March, what would it be? 

There is a lot of on-screen sex. Bare rears pumping, shots of boobs and torsos, legs intertwined, blah, blah. My reactions range anywhere from, “Ick, gross,” to, “Wow, that’s sexy,” to, “Hahahahaha!” Because sex, while a lot of fun in the doing, has the potential to be highly comedic.

But for real heat, nothing works like a well-done on-screen kiss. And by well-done, I mean the kind of kiss that quivers on the edge of erotica without ever going any farther than four lips meeting for the exchange of souls.

In the newest PBS version of JANE EYRE, do you remember the scene after Jane saves Mr. Rochester from the fire in his bed? They stand in silhouette against the firelight. He wraps a blanket around her shoulders. And they don’t kiss … they look at each other.

Right there on the couch, I froze, unable to move, my carbonated beverage halfway to my mouth, my eyes straining, while passion smolders between them. What makes it better is — she doesn’t know what is happening, she doesn’t know what to do — and he does. And he’s right there. He could seduce her. He wants to so badly, I could taste it. And he restrains himself.

If I had spilled my drink into my lap, steam would have risen.

Later, there was more, when he was trying to convince her to stay with him, but that one scene in silhouette is seared onto my eyeballs. Sexual tension is not about heaving bottoms. It’s about one man and one woman hovering on the edge of love, yearning for one thing and one thing only — each other. That is the kind of moment I always try to include in my books, one that leaves you breathless.

So in no particular order, here’s my very incomplete list of the best movie kisses.

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA At the end when she’s trying to get away to go with Raoul and she plants a good one on the Phantom and only one thought runs through the mind of every woman watching. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? GERARD BUTLER? YOU’RE LEAVING GERARD BUTLER FOR PRETTY BOY RAOUL? HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FEEBLE GRASP ON REALITY? SO THE PHANTOM’S FACE IS A LITTLE MESSED UP! ALL CATS ARE GRAY IN THE DARK!

DON JUAN DE MARCO Early on, there is this scene with a woman in a restaurant. She’s obviously waiting for a man who doesn’t value her as he should, and Johnny Depp (dressed as Don Juan de Marco in a cape and a mask), sits down at her table. He kisses her fingers one by one while saying, “These women… have fingers, with the same sensitivities as their legs. The fingertips have the same feelings as their feet, and when you touch their knuckles, it is like passing your hands along their knees. And this, tender, fleshy part of the finger, is the same as brushing your hands along their thighs. And… finally...”

One word. Wowsa.

LAST OF THE MOHICANS DA! DA DA DAH DAH! DAH DAH DAH DAH! A hot kiss, a great theme, and a fabulous line delivered by an intense Daniel Day-Lewis.
“What are you looking at, sir?”
“I’m looking at you, miss.”

The kiss at the end of A&E’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE — okay, it’s barely even a real kiss, but the lead-up is six hours of Colin Firth brooding over Miss Elizabeth Bennett. Talk about a build-up of sexual tension that can only be released by … one … thing!

And, oh man, let’s never forget that moment on the piano in PRETTY WOMAN.

I wrote some great sex in IN BED WITH THE DUKE. But I was most proud of the kisses they shared. “This wasn’t some tentative, inexperienced press of lips to lips. This was a swashbuckling kiss. This was a passionate kiss. This kiss was running through an exotic jungle, splashing into a warm, tempestuous sea, stepping into the storm outside and inviting the lightning to strike and set her ablaze. The wind from the open window swirled around them, wet and cool, lifting the hem of her nightgown and tangling it around his boots. Emma strained against him, absorbing this man’s love of adventure, of justice, and of … her? His lips parted hers, his tongue swept into her mouth. He tasted her and wordlessly invited her to taste him, his soul, his being.”

“> What movie kisses have been so hot that you melted in your chair? What almost-kisses seared the scene onto your eyeballs? What do you think makes the difference between a kiss that makes you toss popcorn into the air and try to catch it in your mouth and one that makes you buy the DVD just so you can run it over and over and over …?
Christina’s Website

I have a magic writing t-shirt.

It’s a t-shirt that I bought for myself at a convention, back when having a book published seemed a distant dream.  I’m not sure what year, but I do know that I’d just started working on WARPRIZE.

It’s getting old, now.  The design on the front is cracked and faded.  There is a slight tear in the front, because one of my cats used me as a launch pad at some point.  The hem is getting worn and frayed.  There are big holes developing under the sleeves.

Why don’t I get rid of it?

Ummm.  Did I mention that it’s magic?

I have a day job, as some of you know, so I tend to write in the evening, or on the weekends, wearing worn jeans and my magic writing t-shirt.

I usually write in snatches.  I carry a pad of paper and during the day, when my characters are talking in the back of my head, I will make a note or write a paragraph, so that when I get time to sit down and write in the evening, the information is there waiting for me.  Usually my characters are fairly talkative, and let me know of what is happening in the story.  Lots of little notes, bits of dialogue, even the outline of a scene. 

Those are good days, when the words flow like water from a spring, clear and cold and perfect, and my fingers dance over the keyboard.  When I look up and realize that its midnight, and I have to work in the morning, but if I can just get one more paragraph down on the page. . .

That is the best feeling in the world.

But then there are days where. . .

Greetings.  You have reached the Castle of Water’s Fall, in the Kingdom of Xy.  No one is available to take your call at this time.  Please leave your message at the tone.  Your call will be answered as soon as we have developed the technology to retrieve this message.

[sigh] You get the idea.

Somehow, when I put on my magic t-shirt, with its worn hem and cuffs, and its holes, somehow it helps.  I don’t know why or how it works, but the act of putting it on helps me focus.  Now, maybe that is all in my head. . .but hey, that is where my characters are too, right?

Now the rational part of my brain knows darn well that my skills don’t actually change by putting on a piece of clothing.  At least I hope not, because I am going to have some explaining to do when that poor shirt is nothing but tatters.  But as humans, we aren’t completely rational, now are we? 

In my new book, WARLORD, there is a scene where Lara appears before the Council of Elders: 
I stood before them all, in the flame red dress, and matching slippers.  I’d put on the bracelets, dotted a bit of my precious vanilla oil between my breasts, and braided my hair down my back. I also had my satchel slung on my hip, and while the strap may have marred the cut of the dress, I’d carried it anyway.  In my own way, I was armed for combat, although they might not recognize the dress or satchel as such.  Still, there had been a stir when I’d entered the pavilion, and it had given me a bit more confidence.
I would take every morsel I could find.

Who hasn’t used a piece of clothing, a bit of perfume or a favorite purse to ‘gird their loins’ for the day?  While we may not be facing a hostile Council of Elders, we all have private battles and difficulties that we need to confront.  How do you prepare yourself, or give yourself that extra edge?  A favorite pair of shoes?  A piece of jewelry?

The first time I read Elizabeth Vaughan, I read her because Geralyn Dawson called and said Beth’s first book, WARPRIZE, made her fiercely envious of Beth’s talent.

Well, blech. Do we really need more supremely talented authors in this world?

I guess so … because I loved WARPRIZE and when the second book hit the shelves (WARSWORN), I was standing in line at the bookstore, money in hand, because I couldn’t wait any longer. Elizabeth Vaughan has build a world that calls to some barely perceived ancestral memory of wide plains, deep snows, fierce warriors and the women who tame them.

WARPRIZE sets-up the time and place — to me, it seems like Eurasian Dark Ages, with Keir of the Cat, a conqueror from the plains who is struggling to bring his people into the Renaissance and who finds his best hope in Lara of Xy, a healer from the city. He takes her into his camp and into his arms, and sets off a war among his people and hers. Keir and Lara are the harbingers of change, and no one knows whether to support them or betray them. WARSWORN moves Lara into the heart of Keir’s army, into plague, into a clash of their cultures. Finally, WARLORD takes Keir and his Warprize into the Heart of the Plains where Keir answers for the loss of his warriors and Lara must be confirmed as his Warprize. The customs of his people, the treachery of the men who fear the change she represents, and her own strength in the face of adversity fascinated me, but it’s the romance that provides the heart of the story. Keir and Lara love each other, and their separation and their longing for each other bound me to this couple as I waited to see if they would come together in triumph.

I loved this series. In a time when books about vampires and dukes and detectives are fun staples, Elizabeth Vaughan’s WARPRIZE series took me to a different, fully conceived world where a primitive reverence for the elements mixes with sophisticated medicine and fabulous imagery. Beth is a fabulous talent and she left me both satisfied and wanting more.

Elizabeth Vaughan has promised to drop by today (and when she blogs with us tomorrow, she’ll be giving away an autographed copy of ALL THREE books and a bar of vanilla soap to one lucky winner), so ask her questions! Questions like … what’s next, Beth? Huh? Huh? What’s next? Tell us all.

What a month March is turning out to be! The Squawkers are bringing you only the best in guest authors and fun!

On Monday, Christina will blog Elizabeth Vaughan’s new release, WARLORD (hint about Christina’s opinion: Wow! What a fabulous book!) On Tuesday, Beth will join Squawk Radio as our guest for an exciting blog session. Come ready with your questions and your comments about the wonderful wind-up of her trilogy!

On March 20 and 21st, we have scored a coup. (Or is that a coop?) JR Ward will join Squawk Radio as our guest blogger for the release of the newest and most popular of her Black Dagger Brotherhood Series, LOVER REVEALED!

Christina Dodd‘s mailing list has been exploring the new section on her website, DARKNESS CHOSEN, her upcoming series about an ancient, dark evil, and the Wilder brothers, a modern family selected to break the pact, no matter the cost to themselves. By Tuesday, the section will be open to everyone! Please make sure you stop and watch the intro with the sound on. It is so cool! I promise, you only have to watch it once, because there’s a “skip intro” button. *g* Once you’re in the section, you’ll see, unveiled for the first time, the covers for SCENT OF DARKNESS (July 2007) and TOUCH OF DARKNESS (August 2007). There is a page explaining the Legend, one for the Cast of Characters, a section for the Books with the back copy and excerpts for you, and finally, insight into how I got the Idea for the series. The section will continue to expand as I add videos and eventually, covers and excerpts for the last two books. I hope you have a great time exploring DARKNESS CHOSEN!

I’ve been having a love affair with all things Indian for a while now. Whenever my husband and I are home alone for the evening, we get carry out from India Palace, a local Indian restaurant that has the best masala sauce in town. I’ve been loving Indian movies and sampling Indian literature. I’ve been shopping on eBay UK for just the right sari. But more than anything else Indian I’ve enjoyed, I absolutely adore bhangra music.

The thing is, I haven’t been collecting bhangra CDs, since they’re kinda hard to find in Kentucky. Instead, I’ve been downloading songs from iTunes. Thanks to the nifty “Just for You” feature on the iTunes web site, every time I download bhangra, I get more bhangra recommendations. So I’ve got a playlist that boasts a couple dozen different artists. For this reason, today’s music blog is going to be about a genre instead of a specific artist.

There’s no way I can describe the sound better than this passage from Wikipedia, so I defer to that site:

“Bhangra is a fusion of music, singing and the beat of the dhol drum, a single stringed instrument called the iktar (ektara), the tumbi and an instrument reminiscent of an enlarged pair of tongs called chimta. The accompanying songs are small couplets written in the Punjabi language called bolis. They relate to harvest celebration, love, patriotism or current social issues. Today the word bhangra is more associated with the style of dance pop music derived from the above mentioned musical accompaniment. The dhol’s smaller cousin, the dholaki, is sometimes used instead of or in addition to the dhol. Additional percussion, including tabla, is frequently used in bhangra.”

Got that? Good. I’ll just add that the music is exotic, powerful, pulsing and hypnotic. Once I start listening to it, I really don’t want to stop.

If I WAS going to do a specific bhangra artist, it would be the band B21, which I’m reasonably certain appeared as the wedding band in “Bend It Like Beckham.” I DID go to great lengths to find their CD “Long Overdue” after seeing that film, finally locating it from a nice Indian student on eBay.UK (who was frankly surprised to find someone from Kentucky buying bhangra *G*). Their name comes from the postal code for Birmingham, which is evidently regarded as the home for UK bhangra. The second most frequently downloaded artist on my playlist is Sapna Awasthi, a folk artist who, I was delighted to discover upon googling her, is known for her “raunchy songs.” Who knew? Other artists I’d recommend checking out are Bally Sagoo, Bina Mistry,Hansraj Hans, Panjabi MC, Sukwinder Singh and Udit Narayan. I have them all on my playlist, and they’re all wonderful.

I know Bhangra isn’t for everyone--my son and niece laugh hysterically at me whenever I play it while they’re around. Although my husband indulges me when I put the music on, I get the feeling he’s not all that keen on it.  But I love it. It transports me to a part of the world I’ve never even visited, and makes me feel right at home. So c’mon, everybody! The lamb curry and naan--and the bhangra--is on me!

Laura Lee Guhrke is one of those rare writers who burst on the publishing scene flaunting word of mouth. Everyone talked about her gift for realistic conflict, her dialogue which deftly moved the story forward and revealed the characters, the romance which moved the reader to laughter and tears, and most of all, everyone gushed, gushed, about her characters, heartrending and heartwarming at the same time. After reading her first book, I at once realized it was all true, she was a true artist with the pen.

Despite all her gifts, I still like Laura a lot. I didn’t want to — nothing’s as irritating as meeting a truly talented writer. But what can I say? She’s smart, keen of eye and sarcastically inclined to revel in the foibles of humanity. In other words, she fits right in here at Squawk Radio.

Laura’s current release, AND THEN HE KISSED HER is the perfect historical romance. It hits all my fantasies right on target. Our heroine, Emmaline Dove, is plain, sensible, a spinster secretary in a man’s world … and an aspiring author. Our hero, Harry, Viscount Marlowe, is a successful publisher, a smooth, handsome charmer who makes lots of money, cares for his female relatives, dodges marriage … and he’s Emmaline’s boss.

Harry’s a good guy, but he carelessly accepts Emmaline’s devotion as his secretary without ever realizing that she wants more from life than serving his every whim. He rejects her manuscripts — four of them — after reading a single paragraph, because he believes no one would be interested in how to shop for parties, in home decorating, or in the proper etiquette for single women. In other words, he totally dismisses what women care about. I immediately knew Harry was a charismatic jerk. I also knew that Emmaline was going to give him such a come-uppance. I don’t know about you, but that’s guaranteed reader satisfaction for me.

Fortunately for Emmaline, after five years of working for Harry, she realizes she doesn’t have to put up with his prejudices and quits. Unfortunately for Harry, Miss Dove is running his business and his life and he can’t function without her. Even more unfortunately, Miss Dove goes to his rival to get published, is wildly successful, and is not at all interested in returning to work for Harry. Did I mention there’s a lot of reader satisfaction in this story?

Emmaline has no illusions about Harry. She has seen him at his worst. Harry is now forced to observe Emmaline’s intelligence, wit and passion as she forms her career. The bridge they build with their mutual endeavors is a joy to watch, but even more fun is the slow build of passion between the mismatched pair. I don’t know whether to call AND THEN HE KISSED HER a classic secretary/boss story or a classic spinster/rake story, but I definitely know it’s one good time.

A lot of people agreed with me, because AND THEN HE KISSED HER debuted at #51 on the USA Today Bestseller List. If you like a fabulous historical romance a la Amanda Quick, run, do not walk, to the bookstore and buy a copy of AND THEN HE KISSED HER by Laura Lee Guhrke.

Laura Lee Guhrke has promised to stop by, so ask your questions and she’ll be glad to answer them. Oh, and she also offered to award an autographed copy of AND THEN HE KISSED HER to one of the commenters!