Happy New Year! from Julie Miller

Happy New Year, everyone! This is great to see the Intrigue Authors blog back up and running. Thanks to Pat White and Patricia Rosemoor for all the work they've done on the Intrigue blog.

Well, I'm having a "Beastly" new year. That's double entendre, of course--my January 07 release from Intrigue is BEAST IN THE TOWER. It's a modern-day Beauty & the Beast tale--urban and Gothic-y--complete with a spunky beauty who runs a diner on the ground level of a Kansas City skyscraper--and a reclusive billionaire "mad scientist" who lives in the penthouse 30 stories above her and works in his secret lab. I had a lot of fun with this one. Throughout the time I was writing it, I kept thinking back to the classic Beast fairy tale. One of my all-time favorites. I've already gotten one delightful reader comment via email re my hero, Dr. Damon Sinclair--"I love a tortured, sexy hero like Damon. He's like Dr. Frankenstein--but hot! And that twist at the end--wow! I never saw that one coming."

What can I say. I'm blushing.

The double entendre is that I've spent about a week recovering from a cold/bronchitis, that was probably brought on by fatigue, due in part to the holidays, but mostly because I've been push-push-pushing on a fast pair of deadlines. I've got a 2 book mini-series coming out later this year--The Precinct: Vice Squad. Back-to-back releases means back-to-back deadlines. And I'm pooped! But what a lot of fun to plot those out. And the heroes in each book--Seth Cartwright and Cooper Bellamy--partners working on a dangerous undercover investigation into the mob--practically wrote themselves. Their personalities were so real to me, that I let them lead me through a lot of both stories .

Well, no rest for the weary, as they say (maybe I've caught some of Delores' jet lag?). I'm starting a new project this week and better get back to work.

It was fun to stop by and say hi. See you soon!

Julie Miller