For this blog I’m giving one commentor a paperback copy of each of my books.  They will receive TAME A WILD HEART, CENTAURI DAWN, CENTAURI TWILIGHT AND CENTAURI MIDNIGHT.  Be sure to leave a comment to be entered to win.  The paperbacks are for US only.  If you are outside the US it will be Smashword coupons for each of the books.

SECRETS
What are secrets? They are bits of information that you keep from someone else or the world. They can be your own secret or that of someone else. They can be small, i.e. I took change from my mother’s purse to buy candy. Or large, you have a friend who had an abortion when she was a teenager. It doesn’t matter why it’s a secret. It just is. Secrets are things we don’t want other people to know because we are afraid they will look down on us.

Here are some of the common secrets that people keep. Many are very serious and we can understand why they are secrets, others we look at and say “Who cares?”

Babies:
Secret baby raised without the father knowing, baby given up for adoption, had an abortion.

Abuse:
Sexual, child, emotional, physical

Physical characteristics:
Real weight, age, hair color, scars

Environmental:
Work experience, why we really left that last job, say we’re laid off rather than fired, what channels we watch on TV (really do we all watch the History Channel??)

We all have secrets. That will never change. What will change is the people who come into our lives that we trust enough to share those secrets with. 99% of the time it’s probably not family that we share them with. Either because we want our family to think the best of us or in some cases, such as with abuse, because someone in the family is the perpetrator.

Then there are the secrets we keep because we don’t want to hurt another person. What good does it do to tell your friend that her husband made a pass at you? All it will do in the end is make your friend angry…at you, not her husband.

What about romance? Specifically romantic fiction. Why do so many people keep their preference for romance a secret? Why are they ashamed that they like happy endings?

Romance fiction accounts for more than fifty percent of all fiction sold and yet it is still looked down upon by members of the public and members of the fiction writers world. Yes, it’s true. Other authors do not think of a romance novel as a real book.

I’m not one of those. I love happy endings. I write happy endings and am proud to call myself a romance writer. There are some authors that hide they write romance. Why? Because there is still a stigma associated with romance fiction. You will never see a romance novel as a Oprah pick of the month. It has a happy ending and for some reason the books she chooses never do.

I love romance, I love writing romance. I believe the world would be a better place if we all had more romance in our lives. And given the readership statistics I’m not the only one who feels that way.

So what are my secrets? What don’t I want others to know about me?

I can’t tell you.

It’s a secret.