JamieSobrato.com

My latest book, a Harlequin SuperRomance titled Baby Under the Mistletoe, arrived in stores last week!

Here’s the back cover copy:

Having a baby isn’t exactly in Soleil Freeman’s plans. Being single and pregnant? Even further off her to-do list. Still, she can make this work…if she can figure out how to handle the father.

West Morgan is absolutely perfect summer distraction material. But building a life with a guy who’s all about picket fences and tradition is not her deal. Funny thing happens when she drops the “Merry Christmas, you’re gonna be a dad” news, though. That delicious attraction that fueled their affair is alive and well. And when West embarks on a campaign to be a family, she’s more open to the idea than she thought!

And if you’d like to order a copy online or read an excerpt, you can do so at EHarlequin, among other places.

I posted yesterday on the Blaze Authors blog about being a not-so-good neighbor: http://blazeauthors.com/blog/2009/09/05/like-a-good-neighbor/

If you add a comment in the next couple of days there on my blog post (the one at Blaze Authors, not this one) you’ll get a chance to win my current release or any one of my previous books. I think I’ll draw three winners on…oh, let’s say Tuesday.

Hmm, that’s not very fair now, is it? Giving away books there but not here? Okay, I’ll also give away a copy of any one of my releases to someone here as well who posts a comment on this entry in the next few days.

Somehow it’s already September. I blinked and the summer vanished. How??? How did this happen??? Have the calendar trolls been toying with me?

So I never got around to making a book page for Made You Look or pretty much any other book, for that matter. Don’t act surprised, because you already know I’m a terribly inefficient website administrator. The very word “administrator” being applied to ME is wrong. Wrong, I tell you. I don’t administrate. Apparently I don’t blog much either.

Anyway, my latest book, Made You Look, was released today. And we should all know by now that Harlequin novels remain on the shelves for exactly 5 minutes, so don’t tell me I didn’t warn you if you wait around until, oh, say, September 15th and can’t find my book anywhere. Go to the store right now and buy it, or get yourself on over to http://www.eharlequin.com and order it. EHarlequin is kind of cool because you don’t even need a credit card to order from there.

Okay, and that’s enough self-promoting. If I do any more I’m going to have to go take a shower.

But what about the book, you ask? Here’s a reader letter I wrote for it, which I kinda like:

What would you do if you had a neighbor who liked to perform indiscreet acts in front of his open window, for all the world to see? Would you draw the shades, or would you pop some popcorn and pull up a chair for the show? When the heroine of Made You Look is presented with this dilemma, she watches, and watches, and watches some more.

I live in an apartment building similar to the heroine’s, with another building across the way, and I’ve often wondered how many eyes are watching me when I accidentally leave a curtain open. And I can see into other people’s apartments as easily as they can see into mine. Lucky for my neighbors, I have a natural instinct to honor other people’s privacy. Otherwise, they might find their lives serving as fodder for fiction.

Unfortunately, I haven’t ever seen anything remotely interesting happening through an open window, even accidentally. Which is why I write fiction—I can create a world where there’s always something fascinating happening in the open window.

I hope you enjoy Made You Look!

Here’s the cover for my upcoming September book, Made You Look. I’ll created a book page for it soon with more info. Stay tuned:

Okay, so I disappeared for a wee little month and a half. It happens. The truth is, I was knocked on my butt by a book.

It all started like this… I wrote a manuscript last fall that didn’t go as I hoped it would. Things went wrong on many levels. I pushed through and got it written, working through vacation and Christmas and finishing it up December 26th. I turned it in, and a few months later, I got a call from my editor. Revisions. Okay, they happen with every book, but the problem was, I’d made such a mess with this one, I had major, major work to do to get the book back on the right track.

So I tried, and tried, and tried some more. It look a month longer than I told my editor it would. I hate being late. It makes me insane. I’m still not sure I did the book justice, but I tried my best.

And the moral of the story? Who knows. But expending extra energy to do anything writing-related, even my blog, was impossible for a while. I think I’m back on my feet now. So here goes…

What’s everyone been up to this spring? Planning to go to the RWA conference this year? I’m not, sadly. My bank account said no way.

Oh, and I’m blogging today at the Blaze Authors blog, www.blazeauthors.com, about my hermit tendencies with online social media.

This morning I had to get my kids to school early so that my son could participate in an Earth Day presentation. His class had gathered up all the wasted food from recent lunches at the school, weighed it, and did some math to figure out how much food on average was going to waste during each lunch at every school in our county. They presented their findings to the entire school and pointed out how the food is not only going to waste, but the resources spent in producing and transporting the food were also then wasted.

I’ve asked my kids in the past to bring home any food they don’t eat from their lunches (unless, of course, it’s something impractical like a half-eaten yogurt with no lid–I had to learn the hard way to point this out to my daughter) or else share anything they don’t want with someone at their lunch table. But the presentation today reminded me about being diligent. Too often I throw away uneaten food instead of taking the time to find a later use for it.

So that’s my resolution for this Earth Day–to use our food carefully. Maybe even prepare and eat a little less… Well, I don’t know about that, but I’ll, um, try. Do you have an Earth Day resolution? If so, what is it?

Among the various pets my kids have talked me into accumulating, our ball python Jawzahr (named for the mythical Persian dragon who chased the sun and moon) gets the most frequent expressions of disapproval from friends and family.

Why on earth would you want a snake? they sensibly ask.

My initial answer was, my son wanted it. He was going through his reptile phase, and he’s such a careful and attentive observer of nature, I wanted to reward his interest with a gift. But over time, I’ve become the snake’s biggest fan.

Jawzahr, unlike our other pets, is neat, quiet, and requires almost no maintenance save for regular handling and a defrosted mouse every week or so. He rewards us with his beauty and peacefulness. I unexpectedly discovered that handling him is good for my mental health, too. He is easily startled, so I must be calm and careful when holding him. This has the effect of lowering my own stress level.

Over time, we’ve learned a great deal about snakes from caring for and observing him, and while this isn’t a benefit I ever thought I wanted, it’s made my frequent wilderness hikes more enjoyable. When I encounter a snake now, I don’t experience a jolt of fear the way I once did. I know how to react, and since most snakes are harmless, I can appreciate such moments as rare chances to observe a creature in its natural habitat.

Our fish tank is a hassle, our lizards are smelly and high maintenance, and our rabbits are disdainful and prone to chewing things they shouldn’t. But the python? He’s lovely.

What’s the best pet you’ve ever had? The oddest?

(PS: If you’re in the market for a snake of your own, check at your local humane society, or look for local breeders on places like Craigslist to help keep the pressure of pet trading off wild populations. Captive-bred snakes are often easier to feed and handle than wild-caught ones too.)

Have you ever wondered how novels get their names? The process usually goes something like this:

I give my book-in-progress a working title. Lots of writers don’t get hung up on whether this working title is a good one, but I’m completely obsessed with names, so I can’t start writing the story with any seriousness until I know what its name is. My current work in progress had a working title of These Three Words.

I love Stevie Wonder. I love words. I love the song of the same name. I love that title. Alas, I knew it would probably be changed. And it was.

After turning in the complete manuscript of a book, my editor usually asks for a list of title suggestions. I say usually, because there are occasions when my title so obviously belongs on the book, there’s no question of changing it. These Three Words, lovely as it sounds, isn’t the most marketable of titles, so I came up with a list of alternatives. This list is used in an editorial meeting during which a title is chosen–sometimes the editors like something on the list, and sometimes they don’t and pick something of their own or ask for another list of suggestions.

The story formerly known as These Three Words is a SuperRomance that takes place during the Christmas season, so I knew we probably needed a Christmas-y title. I also knew I should focus on the elements in the story that tend to sell books. Namely, a pregnant heroine, an impending baby, and a military hero.

The title my editor ultimately chose was Baby Under the Mistletoe. It works because it gives the reader an idea of what the story might be about–babies and Christmas. It’s sweet, happy, hopeful, and warm.

Not every book has been so easy to come up with a name for. In one memorable instance, two other authors and I spent several weeks brainstorming several long lists of titles for a 3-book series we were doing together, and even with all that effort, none of the titles we came up with were satisfactory.

I’m strongly drawn to a well-titled book, though some of my favorite authors have titles I don’t love–often, when an author becomes a franchise, or the publisher is trying to market them as such, the titles are more a part of the franchise packaging than they are an indicator of the content of the story. Those titles drive me batty, because I have trouble remembering them when trying to recommend a book to a friend.

Do titles matter to you as a reader? If so, what are some of your favorites or least-favorites?

I’m blogging today at the fabulous new Blaze Authors blog. I’ve posted the story of how I got my start as a writer.

Check it out, and you can enter there for a chance to win copies of my first two novels (or any other two if you already have those).

Reading the line edit of my upcoming September book last night, I had a rare moment of sheer joy at discovering that I was really happy with something I’d written. I’m usually much more in the camp of “I suck at writing.”

But the thing I was happy about presents a problem for me that I’m not sure how to work out. It’s a character, actually. The hero’s brother in my next release, Made You Look, is the kind of character I love to write. He’s smart and funny, and he’s also bipolar. His life is difficult, he’s insecure, he’s marginally employed… Definitely not the usual romance novel hero material. He’s the kind of guy who only appears as a secondary character in romances.

He’s a great reminder for me that there’s a balance to be struck in creating genre heroes and heroines. Yes, they need to be admirable people, but they also need to have some serious flaws that make them human and relatable. I did manage to create two quite flawed main characters in the book as well, but the hero’s brother is the one who speaks to me most clearly. I’ll be interested to hear reader feedback about him when the book comes out.

So how do we writers best strike the balance between creating flawed characters while still making them heroic? How do you do it, or if you’re strictly a reader, who are some of your favorite flawed heroes and heroines, and why do they work for you?