This is a great time of year if you’re a sports fan. Pretty much every major league is playing. So this week on the Romance Writers Weekly Blog Hop, this is our topic:

NHL, NBA, NFL, WNBA, FIFA - Do these acronyms mean anything to you? Are you a sports fan, and if so, of what team/sport?

I love to watch sports while I’m doing something else. Does that mean I’m a fan or just using it for white noise? LOL! When it comes to teams, I like to keep in touch with the Vancouver Canucks, Toronto Raptors and Toronto Blue Jays. (Don’t get me started on why a country as big as Canada can’t have more than one MLB or NBA team. As a westerner, it can be hard to cheer for a team from Toronto!). My husband is a big Seattle Seahawks fan (he’s greatly disappointed in them this season) and so I usually have an idea what’s going on in the NFL, too.

Canada has some great young tennis players, and it was so much fun watching Layla Fernandez at the US Open. And I love watching the big golf tournaments, too. Of course, then there’s the Olympics. I prefer the Winter to the Summer, so am looking forward to 2022!

Want to know a secret - the hero in my current work in progress is a coach for a junior hockey team, so I'll be living and breathing hockey while I write it to get the correct feel.

How about you? Do you follow sports? Are you an avid fan or just recreational, like me? Let me know in the comments below! Then hop over to A. S. Fenichel

​We’re having fun and learning new things about each other this week on the Romance Writers Weekly Blog!

Have you played “Never Have I Ever?” Someone says “Never have I ever” and then mentions something they’d never done. If anyone in the group has done it, they had to confess. (Note – I’m pretty sure this started as a drinking game, LOL!)

Here’s "Never Have I Ever - Book Edition." Feel free to play along in the comments. As an added incentive, one random commenter will receive an Advanced Copy of my next release, The Promise of Frost.

My score is: 5

I have never:

2. Missed a meal to finish reading (it is, after all, completely possible to read and eat at the same time!)
7. Dreamed of a book boyfriend
13. Met a book model
15. Gone to a book signing (other than my own, of course!)
16. Joined a book club

What about you? What on this list have you never done? Remember, comment below for a chance to win an Advanced Copy of The Promise of Frost. Or, if you'd just like to pre order it now, click here!

Then, head over to ​Leslie Hachtel to see what score she got! 

No matter where you live, there is a rhythm to the seasons. Some places the change is more dramatic than others, of course! This week on the Blog Hop, A.S. Fenichel says:

Fall is here in the US and Canada! It’s my favorite season. What do you love about the autumn or do you have another favorite season?

There is something special about fall. For one, it’s the only season to have two names! Autumn is more poetic, don’t you think?

Here in Northern BC we don’t have quite the colourful glory of the forests in eastern Canada, but that doesn’t mean it is drab and gray. This year has been perfect for the leaves – just cold enough to turn, but not so cold they freeze. Even my ivy, which I showed a few weeks ago, is still going strong and is now a beautiful red.

You might think living in a colder climate would mean spring is my favourite season, but it isn’t. “The melt” as I non-affectionately call it, can be very grim and dirty. By the middle of May things are looking up, but March and April are months simply to be endured. On the other side of summer, autumn often brings bright blue skies and crisp temperatures that lure me outside. Just this past weekend we spent several hours sitting around a backyard campfire with family and it was wonderful. Maybe it is the knowledge that winter is coming that makes me appreciate the days even more.

​All careers and jobs have good and bad points. The trick is finding one where the highs outweight the lows. This week on the Romance Writers Weekly Blog Hop, A.S. Fenichel asks:

What’s your favorite thing about being a writer and why?

If you joined me from Leslie Hachtel, welcome.

There are a lot of things I like about being a writer.

I like the flexibility. While I try and get my writing done every morning, if I don’t, I can fit it in later in the day. And though most of the time I sit at my desk, I also love to write in my lounger in the front room, in the back yard, in our boat, and while fishing on the river’s edge.

I like the creativity. I truly enjoy weaving a story, getting to know my characters and seeing how things will turn out. While the happy ending is always going to be there, it’s the journey that fascinates me.

I love having written. Even better than writing itself, I love looking back at what I’ve done, even when I know it still needs work. Seeing the word count add up each day is terrifically satisfying.

But if I had to pick one thing as my favourite, it has to be hearing what readers think of my work. And I don’t necessarily mean only the good opinions. Words on the page are just random, scribbled marks unless someone reads them and absorbs them and considers them. So-called “bad” reviews are often the most insightful, and mean the reader really thought about the story. “Good” reviews make my heart sing and can have me smiling all day, of course. Because who doesn’t want to learn that someone enjoyed the story I spent months writing?

Travel forward on the blog hop with Jenna Da Sie, next on the roll!

Here in Northern BC, September is a beautiful month. While the mornings can hover around freezing, the afternoons can match hot summer temperatures, with clear blue skies and gorgeous sunsets. But there is no escaping the fact autumn is here, as the leaves change colours and the scent of dying vegetation lingers in the garden. Which led me to suggest this week's topic on the RWW Blog Hop:

Do you read differently in different seasons? Need lighter reads for summer sunshine and save the deep thoughts for dark winter nights?

To be honest, until I thought up this question, I had never really considered I might choose my reading by what time of year it is. But as I pondered, I realized I do have certain trends.

In the summer, when we spend a lot of time outdoors, I read shorter, fun fiction the most. It’s easier to fit into busy days, and who wants to read deep, depressing tomes when the sun is shining?

Not that I read too many of those kinds of books, anyway. But I’m pretty sure that as the days get shorter and the dark comes sooner, I’m more willing to settle in with a story that challenges me to think deep thoughts. I also find I tend to read longer books in the colder season – ones that will keep me in the author’s world and out of the doldrums of winter.

What about you? Do you have seasonal reading habits? What about non-fiction – do you read that all year long or only certain times of the year? I’d love to hear more!

Then, hop over to Caro Kinkead and see what she reads when!

This week’s topic was just too easy. Jenna Da Sie asks:

Do you like to go camping, if so where is your favourite place? Do you camp in a tent or camper?

Do I like to go camping – pshaw! Of course I do. I’ve shared photos before on this blog showing our wonderful trips.

First off, let me say that for me, camping is best with a travel trailer that had a working toilet and hard sides to keep out the larger Northern British Columbia critters. I have tented, but it is so much work to bring everything you need. With our travel trailer, we load up food and firewood and off we go. We rarely camp where there are services such as electricity and water, so we are very self-sufficient.

When I was 12 my parents bought a travel trailer to replace our tent trailer. I remember being there when my dad made the purchase. 17 years later, my husband and I bought that trailer from my parents and spent about 15 years camping with our kids. We have since upgraded to something newer, but it was a wrench to sell that trailer with so many happy memories.

Our favourite place to go is a lake about 45 minutes east of our town called Purden Lake. It is a provincial park and has large, private sites surrounded by lush forest. The lake is clear and clean, the amber colour of many northern lakes, and while the fishing isn’t the best, it is still fun to drop a line in the water.

I am blessed to live in an area with an abundance of beautiful places to camp. This summer we have spent close to 4 weeks camping on a number of trips, and it has been wonderful.

Enjoy these photos celebrating some of our camping memories, then be sure to hop over to Clair Brett and get her take on the great outdoors!

Guess what? I have a cover for my Christmas novella, coming this fall!

An adventurous kitten, a curious dog, and a matchmaking eight-year-old guarantee this will be a holiday to remember.

Luca Tannon’s new neighbour is a sexy but surly single dad. Which is all for the best since she’s focussed on reclaiming her life after a toxic long-term relationship.

Caleb Frost won’t let anything distract him from ensuring his son’s first Christmas as the child of divorced parents is perfect. And that includes the irritatingly intriguing woman living next door.
Everything is going as planned…until it’s not.

The Romance Writers Weekly Blog Hop is back! We took some time off to enjoy summer, but we are all set to head into fall full of energy and vigour.

This week, A.S. Fenichel http://asfenichel.com/blog/ asks:

We’re getting into the dog days now. What do you do to relax? Is it a hobby, laying about in the sun or something else? How do you unwind and how does it feed your soul?

Summer in Northern British Columbia has been…odd, to say the least. We started July with record heat. I’m not sure what the official high temperature was, but it was near enough to 40C (104F) not to matter. That is INSANELY hot for where I live.

Since then, we’ve bounced from cool, rainy weather back to unusually hot days and back again. It’s like we’ve been having mini-summers LOL!

This week on the Blog Hop, we’re talking about dreams. Leslie Hachtel says:

Tell us what you dream about.

So, there’s a couple ways of taking this question! I dream about making the bestsellers lists and spending time with the family that doesn’t involve social distancing (we’re almost there!!). But when it comes to sleeping dreams, that’s a different story.

My dreams can be very vivid. They are usually in colour and sometimes even involve physical sensations like touch. Thank goodness I don’t have nightmares – not often, anyway – although I remember one that I had when I was a child where I was going to go over a waterfall and woke up just before I fell off the bed!

Most of my dreams seem to involve not being able to accomplish things. I’ll need a key to unlock a door, and when I open the drawer to get it, it’s not there. Then, when I finally find the key, the door isn’t there anymore. In the days when we travelled more often, I often dreamt about missing our flight or ending up at the wrong hotel.

Now that I think of it, I rarely dream pleasant, relaxing things. Huh. I wonder why that is? How about you? What do you dream!
The next stop in our blog hop is here with Leslie Hachtel!

When I am doing my first draft, I just want to get the story down. I don’t think too much about themes or tropes (I’ll explain that later)…I just listen to the people in my head and put them in situations that will reveal their character and conflict. I usually get stuck about halfway through, though, and when I do, it’s a good time for me to reflect on “What is this story about?” That’s where themes and tropes come in.

This week on the Blog Hop, A.S. Fenichel says:

Lately I’ve been thinking about the story themes that turn me on and inspire me. List your top ten favorite story or plot themes. It can be anything from Dragons to friends to lovers.

Themes are an underlying thread that ties the whole story together. Finding home or good vs. evil or revenge. A trope is the structure the story hangs on. In romance, tropes might be marriage of convenience, friends to lovers, or enemies to lovers.

As a writer, my two favourite tropes are friends to lovers and second chance. I’m not a big fan of insta-lust or insta-love (though if handled well can be great) and prefer a slowly growing realization between my characters. Both of these tropes work really well for that. In my upcoming book, I use both, as my hero and heroine were married very young, broke up, and then thirty years later become friends and work toward a happy ever after.

I read a lot of Regency romance, and in those I love a marriage of convenience trope. It suits the time period, when women were expected to marry and couldn’t always wait to find their soulmate. These often end up being friends to lovers, too, because a sound marriage usually starts with affection.

Other tropes I like to read include forced proximity (can be location or activity, such as career), fake relationship (as long as the two main characters are in it together and aren’t faking out the other), and opposites attract (I think you get this one).

What about you? When you think about your reading, are you drawn to specific type of story? Leave a comment below, then hop over to Leslie Hachtel.