WRITING CHRISTMAS

HOLIDAY IN CRIMSON

There’s something about murder and Christmas that just seems to work for me. Even though they have a short shelf life, Christmas romantic suspense stories are my cup of eggnog.

I’ve actually written FOUR Intrigues set at Christmas.

In my last blog, I wrote about killing Santa Claus in HOLIDAY IN CRIMSON, published last month in Entangled Publishing’s new Dead Sexy romantic suspense line.

What you might not know is that HOLIDAY IN CRIMSON actually is an updated and editorially revised version of CRIMSON HOLIDAY, which I wrote for Harlequin Intrigue in the late 80s.

Then, when Intrigue wanted to celebrate its 10th anniversary several years later, the powers that be decided not only to reprint some of its most loved books in a leather bound edition, but to offer readers connected books to each of the ones included in the collection.

And so I wrote CRIMSON NIGHTMARE, using many of the fun characters from CRIMSON HOLIDAY. My heroine, Pippa McNabb is the younger sister of Rand McNabb, who was my hero in the original story. I revised and updated CRIMSON NIGHTMARE for Dead Sexy, as well.

NIGHTMARE IN CRIMSON is now available in digital formats:

Another year, another Christmas party...another dead Santa! Run down by eight tiny reindeer and a sleigh, was he killed by accident—or was it murder?

NIGHTMARE IN CRIMSON

At last season’s party, it was Pippa McNabb’s faithless Santa-clad husband who died—so after another St. Nick ends up dead, she’s at the top of the police suspect list. When hunky sleigh-driver Sky Thornton offers his help to find the real culprit, she accepts, and soon finds herself snuggled up with him before a holiday fire—and falling hard for the blue-eyed stranger. But how does he know so much about her...?

Suddenly she isn’t certain if her mysterious new lover is attempting to help her clear her name, trying to frame her for a murder he might have committed...or working to win her heart forever.

Writing romantic suspense doesn’t get much more fun (at least not for me) than that.
                       
The most challenging part of writing the second story was to make it different from the first. Both CRIMSON stories are set at Christmas, both at the same department store, both with a dead Santa as the central mystery. The first thing I had to do was figure out a death that would be different, interesting and leave the authorities confused about whether the hero, the heroine, or someone else did the deed. The fun for me was in having Pippa and Sky suspect one another even as they are attracted to each other. And in having Pippa discover Sky’s true involvement AFTER she falls for him. I hope that’s fun for readers, too.


In RED CARPET CHRISTMAS, a 2005 Intrigue -- the final book of the Club Undercover series -- my hero Gideon put his former lover Simone’s father behind bars for killing his own father. Now she needs his help... to clear her of a murder she didn’t commit.





And in CHRISTMAS DELIVERY, a 2010 Intrigue, part of a Holiday Mystery at Jenkins Cove series with Rebecca York and Ann Voss Peterson, my hero Simon returns from the dead after 13 years and is hell-bent on revenge. Only a Christmas miracle could reunite him with Lexie, the girl he’d once loved... and the daughter he didn’t know he had.


Take the time to enjoy a holiday read this coming week.

Happy Holidays to all and to all a good night :)

Patricia Rosemoor has written more than 90 novels for 8 publishers and has more than 7 million books in print. She writes “dangerous love,” casting her lovers against a backdrop of mystery and suspense.