Pamela Clare for those of you who might not know, ::looks at lawson:: wrote one of my all time favorite American historicals and is the author quite a few more. She also has expanded into romantic suspense which hits her closer to home as a journalist.

She was kind enough to answer a few questions and tell us what the hell she has been up to and when we should expect her next book.

What are you up to these days?

I’ve been very busy at the newspaper, and at the same time I’ve been working on the next book in my I-Team series. It’s titled Unlawful Contact and tells Sophie’s story. She covers the prison beat for the paper and is taken hostage one day by Marc Hunter, a convicted murderer, who uses her to escape. But there’s a lot more to Marc and his situation than Sophie imagines. The two of them end up working together to find the men responsible for brutalizing and attempting to kill his little sister.

Do the characters from Extreme Exposure and Hard Evidence make appearances?

Yes, they do. In fact, I’ve had to work overtime to keep Julian out of the story. He was stealing scenes for a while. He still has a couple of pretty key scenes. All of the characters figure into the store somehow from Reece and Kara to Tessa and Julian to Horny Holly, whom I love.

I saw that your historical Surrender was chose as a RITA finalist in the Long Historical Category. You must be excited!

I was blown away when I got the call. I didn’t know they were making calls that day, so when I answered the phone I wasn’t suspecting anything. I nearly fainted, then a moment later burst into tears. My parents were visiting. They watched me answer the phone and grab for a chair. My mom thought something terrible had happened. It wasn’t until I got off the phone that I was able to explain.

So, yes, I’m ecstatic. Just being a finalist feels like such an amazing honor. I’m thrilled to be in the company of Mary Jo Putney and Mary Balogh. Their names are synonymous with “historical romance.” The RWA conference is going to be so much fun this year.

Surrender started a new trilogy for you, but you’ve been busy writing contemporary romantic suspense. Are you going to finish that trilogy?

Absolutely! Historicals are what I love to read, and I love writing them, as well. They’re more challenging than contemporaries, I believe, but I also get more out of them. I’ll be starting Untamed, the sequel to Surrender, sometime next month. I’ll have at least two books out in 2008 (Unlawful Contact and Untamed), but none out in 2007. I’m a slooooow writer. Being a single mom and running a news room doesn’t make it any easier.

You can keep up with Pamela Clare at her spiffy blog. And has an interesting blog post up go check it out.