Tag: Romantic Suspense

Jimmy Carter SpeaksSelf-publishing my novel Palace of the Blue Butterfly was one little way of speaking truth to power. The novel tells the story of an older woman who longs for some kind of transformation. There is romance but not on the man’s terms. It explores the terrible period of McCarthyism in this country. It does not glorify the very rich, and it refutes the lie that Americans are comfortable perpetuating — that Mexico is a backward country full of desperately poor campesinos and drug lords.

When the powerful in my little world said that the Mexican setting wouldn’t sell, that the love interest couldn’t be Mexican, that my protagonist was too old, I could have remained silent. I did not. While there was no gun . . .

Mexican BeachFinally! After all the proofreading and all the formatting and all the figuring out how to get Palace of the Blue Butterfly on Amazon Books and Goodreads, I‘m starting to revise my second romantic suspense novel Bird of Paradise.

This is sort of what I look like these days — only no fishbowl, no fish, no green branches, just me staring out into space. Any normal person would wonder what I’m doing. Well just FYI: Yesterday, my imagination took me to a beach on Mexico’s Pacific coast. I felt the sand on the soles of my feet, the wind in my hair, heard the waves, the shells being pulled out to sea, and in this trance, characters emerged from nowhere, for example, the French guy — Francois Richter. Where did he come from? He wasn’t in my first draft. But Bee, my main character, opened the door of the van, and there he was in . . .

Palace of the Blue Butterfly coverEn Fin! Finally. Amazing what I can do with a little free time. Now all I have to do is get this novel formatted for Amazon, and all those who “Have Kindle Will Travel” can download it and be good to go.

I’m not giving anything away if I tell you that Lili takes a side trip to Valle de Bravo, a charming hillside town built around Lake Avandaro just a couple of hours outside of Mexico City. Of course, you’ll just have to read the book and find out why she goes there and what she finds out when she does, but I thought I’d show you some pretty pictures I pulled from Travel and Leisure just to whet your appetite.

In the chapter I’m talking about, we will follow Lili as she walks by the lake, heads up to the plaza and wanders the streets looking for a certain address. It will be hard to read a romantic suspense novel like Palace of the Blue Butterfly if the only images you have in your mind of Mexico are vast deserts, dusty run-down villages, narco-kingpins and a population . . .

Palace of the Blue Butterfly | Episode 8. Okay, so I’m a romantic. I admit it. Maybe because I’m from the South, but I love the Gothic. I love crumbling buildings draped with vines, overgrown gardens with a bit of wildness in them, anything scented and sultry and dark.

Sometimes Mexico seems more southern to me than the south, more gothic, more brooding and, yes, more romantic, like this hacienda . . .

Hammock by Ocean, SmallPalace of the Blue Butterfly | Episode 5. Here’s the way I look at it. If I weren’t supposed to enjoy reading and writing ChickLit/Romantic Suspense novels, would hammocks, Lipton’s Diet Ice Tea with Lemon and Bain de Soleil suntan lotion ever have been invented? I think not, girlfriends.

So what is Chick Lit? And why do women like it? Well, as Laura Caldwell says, “[Chick Lit] connotes a work that appeals to women . . .