Lynn Lorenz on Lucky in Red

Lucky in Red is my first release from Passions in Print, MLR’s traditional romance imprint, and I’m just thrilled to be there for several reasons.

One, the publisher is Laura Baumbach. ‘Nuff said.

Second, it’s an anthology with two of my favorite authors and people, Belinda McBride and Jianne Carlo. If you haven’t read their stuff, you should. Go ahead. I’ll wait. And if you’re not lucky enough to know either of these ladies personally, it’s a shame. Both of them are creative, funny, professional, and just good people.

Third, it’s the first time I’ve ever…er, colluded…with other writers. We had the bare minimum requirements for the anthology and Laura, God love her, let us run with it. And we did, oh boy! We came up with what we hope is an original twist to a story about werewolves who meet their mates (and their matches) in three women with stained red dresses.

Now, I’m the first to tell you I’m not sure I could ever write with a partner. I’m just too anal… (stop snickering, yeah, I said anal. Yeah, I said it again.) and a control freak. Just thinking about the arguments over whose name is first terrifies me. So this was a great way to get a taste of working with someone else, sharing a story and working through a process to get to a final work that is consistent and works as a whole.

Not easy, but these ladies made it a dream. We chatted on Skype several times and as each of us finished the first chapters, we sent them back and forth to read and edit. It was great! I loved having two sets of eyes on my chapter, and seeing what they had that I could shameless steal….er, incorporate, into my story.

One of the town’s wild and crazy characters came from Jianne’s first chapter. Belinda and I saw her and said, okay, she has to be in all the stories!! She’s one of the only people that appear in all of them.

And oh my God, we had so many decisions to make, decisions a single writer makes without having to ask anyone any questions, such as….

We decided that the brothers would only exist in the other stories as a presence on a cell phone or email, but not physically appear. We decided on the location, Sleeping Dog, Texas, and that the weres would own a dry cleaning store. We decided they’d be Hispanic and each of us grabbed our favorite names – Maximilian, Diego, and Antonio – and because they’re brothers, what order they were born. That led to if he’s first, then he’s alpha and act like this, the middle brother would act like this, and the youngest, the baby, would be like that.

So many decisions, right? Catch your breath, cuz there were more…. Hair color, style, eyes, body build, characteristics, and speech patterns. And that was just the guys!

When we got to the women in the stories, it was the same thing, only different. What would their names be? What would they look like? I wanted to write a BBW story, so how could I incorporate that into my guy’s character? Jianne’s alpha male needed a sweet sub, Belinda’s middle son needed someone to set him straight, and my younger son, a geek, had to find his inner alpha.

Then we tackled the dresses. What stains would each one have? How would they happen? What would each woman’s dress look like? Red was the only decision we didn’t have to make when we started.

It was an amazing experience. I think it worked well, story-wise and writer-wise. I’ve heard more than one author say they’d never co-write again, and even though we didn’t really co-write, I think this is a close as I might get and still be in my comfort zone. (yeah, there is comfort food in my zone, and a recliner, and a remote control) We’re hoping it’s successful, because once we finished, we started thinking of other anthologies we wanted to write together…. The mind boggles!!

Once it comes out, I hope you’ll agree that these three werewolves and their mates are a perfect fit and that as writers, Belinda, Jianne, and I are a perfect fit too.

Lynn Lorenz on Werewolves

First, thanks to Belinda (my partner in crime on many occasions) for inviting me to blog about werewolves.

Werewolves just do it for me. I love them. Shamelessly. Give me a werewolf, and I’m all over it…er, the story not the actual were….well, you know what I’m saying.

Vamps are cool, and that’s just it. They’re sort of cool and aloof.

But weres?? They’re warm blooded, passionate, and take on the best behaviors of the animals they shift into. Wolves are my favorites, mostly because I have a hard time imagining other animals, except maybe bears, for a full-grown man to change into even with magic.

I mean, who’s going to buy a book about shape shifting hamsters? What’s sexy about that? Lemurs? Gophers? Cattle? Fish? Okay, maybe if I were going for laughs, but for sexy, nothing beats a wolf.

Just one look in those amber eyes and I shiver. It’s the mix of danger, respect, and a longing to run your fingers through that glorious fur, that lures me in and leaves me rolling over and panting for more. Woof!

So when Passions In Print contacted me and asked if I would like to do an anthology, then said it could be vamps or weres, I immediately voted “Weres!” in my inside my head voice. Then they suggested that each story involve a were and a woman in a red dress, most likely meeting in a bar. Oh, and could I find two other writers to fill out the threesome?

Luckily for me, I knew who to contact and after a brief flurry of emails, Jianne Carlo and Belinda (our hostess with the mostest) agreed to join me. Now I’ve never done an anthology with anyone else, or partnered on a book, so this was virgin territory. (Shh, I know you’re snickering. Yeah, I said ‘virgin’.) But thank goodness for Skype, we worked out some ideas, freshened it up, and re-proposed our anthology to PiP.

Luckily for us, the lovelies at PiP agreed to let us run with our new ideas. So we went with werewolves living in a small town in Texas called Sleeping Dog. And we have three brothers, Max, Diego, and Tony Lobos, who own not a bar, but the Tres Lobos Dry Cleaners. And their lovely red-dressed ladies? Well, they’re still lovely, but the red dresses are brought into the cleaners with naughty stains.

It’s up to the hotter-than-Texas-asphalt-in-August brothers to sweet talk those ladies into telling them just how the stains happened in order to get them out of those dresses, both the stains and the ladies.

And what dresses! Each one has a particular stain and story, and each of these women is truly a match for her man…er, wolf…well, man-wolf.

In November, come visit Sleeping Dog, meet the Lobos brothers and the women who tame them. Oh, and like most small towns there are a few other memorable characters hanging around.

You’ll discover why they’re Lucky in Red.