Thanks to the generosity of Harlequin SuperRomance authors Debra Salonen and Ellen Hartman, we had several contest winners to close out our May Spotlight! Winners need to e-mail Wendy with their shipping address to receive their prizes. We hope everyone has enjoyed this Harlequin Spotlight, because we sure did have a great time putting it all together!

The winner of two books from Ellen Hartman is:

Phyl!

The two grand prize winners of three books from Debra Salonen are:

Ruby D. and Greta!

These three runner-up winners will receive a copy of Debra’s latest book, Baby By Contact:

Virginia H., Jessica and TracyS!

The entire month of May, Wendy the Super Librarian, and a contingent of fine-feathered ducks, shined the spotlight on Harlequin SuperRomance. In case you missed out on some, or all, of our fun posts – here they are again, for your consideration, in one handy-dandy place. Enjoy!

The Intro: Super Wendy Does SuperRomance

The Authors:

Interview: Kathryn Shay Is In The Hot Seat

Interview: Debra Salonen Heads For The Hills

Guest Post: All About Men With Ellen Hartman

The Reviews:

Another Man’s Baby by Kay Stockham – reviewed by limecello

The Man Behind The Cop by Janice Kay Johnson – reviewed by Wendy and Sandy M

Having Justin’s Baby by Pamela Bauer – reviewed by Devon

The Boy Next Door by Amy Knupp – reviewed by Devon

Anything For Her Children by Darlene Gardner – reviewed by Sandy M

His Secret Past by Ellen Hartman – reviewed by Sandy M and Wendy

The Woman In Blue by Janice Kay Johnson – reviewed by Shannon

When I was asked to contribute to The Good, The Bad, and The Unread this week, my topic was: Why do I love Superromance?

Easy Answer: The men.

Is that shallow? I know it’s shallow. Sorry. I can’t help myself. Have you read a Super? Then you know what I’m talking about.

All romances have heroes, but the men of SuperRomance really hit it for me. I think it’s the reality plus romance. These guys are out there living real lives, doing their best to be dads, businessmen, ranchers, firefighters, etc., and then love walks in and smacks them around and they…fall right for it.

If loving these guys is shallow, I don’t want to be deep.

(I hope my mom doesn’t read this. Or my teachers who instructed me in high-minded literary topics. Because honestly, although I can appreciate a well-developed plot and sterling sentence structure, (Note: That’s alliteration. See, I’m literary…) when I read a romance, it’s all about the men. Oops…all about the man. I better take them one at a time because there’s shallow and then there’s badly behaved. Okay, now I’m really sidetracked. Let me back up.)

Hi. I’m Ellen Hartman and I write funny, heartfelt SuperRomances about men people and their hunt for their heart’s desire. I’m neither shallow nor badly behaved. (Usually.) My characters on the other hand…let’s just say the hero of my current release, His Secret Past started his career playing guitar for a shore band from Jersey.

In case the men aren’t enough to convince you (but seriously, they should be), here are my top five other reasons to love Superromance.

5. Kathleen O’Brien. I read her book, The Homecoming Baby, and I knew I’d found the place I wanted to be published. Kathleen’s books are typical Supers. They’re well written, rich, and extremely satisfying. Oh, and her heroes are really hot. Kathleen was my first but after her I never looked back. Super authors are good at their work and I’m grateful Kathleen brought me into this world.

4. The Supers board on eHarlequin. I lurked there until the month that my first Super came out. Now the Supers board is truly my home on the web. What do we discuss? Everything of importance, including:

• Books: Reading and writing them.
• Husbands: We love them, but we think they may be crazy or that they might make us crazy. Who cares, we love them!
• Tiaras: Why every woman deserves sparkling headgear.
• Dean Winchester: Ellen’s All-Time Favorite TV Character. (Okay, so it’s possible I’m the only who actually discusses Dean on a regular basis. We do cover other hot men, though, including Colin Firth, that guy from Lost, and unanimous board-favorite John Cusack.)
• Help: We assist with plot, prayers, virtual hugs, vacation plans, and are always ready to listen if you need to vent. Plus, there’s a whole group of people who actually like Mondays so if you’re on of those weirdos you should definitely drop by.

3. The Super editors. They’re smart, supportive, and a lot of fun. Heh. Welcome to the sucking up portion of my Top 5. But come on, who wouldn’t love the folks who made her writing dreams come true? For me, SuperRomance is like Craig Hitnr, the guy who gave me a plastic ring complete with purple plastic gemstone in first grade. I’ll never forget Craig or SuperRomance. TLA 4 EVA!

2. Variety. I read SuperRomances for the same reasons anyone reads a particular line. I like to know what I’m getting. But SuperRomances have a lot of variation within the line. In the past year I’ve read Supers about a bunch of poker playing guys, a veterinarian and the cowboy she loves (and his eight children), a risk-taking journalist and her risk-adverse lover, and a love triangle that thankfully resolved into two pairs! For me, SuperRomance is like a diner where the food is homemade and I like everything on the menu. I could eat there every night without running out of choices!

1. Deep, rich stories. As a reader, my number one interest is always going to be the story. People ask me if the “super” in SuperRomance means more pages. (They also ask if it means more sex—some people have no boundaries…sigh.) Supers are one of the longer Harlequin lines, but for me, the super part is the depth of the story. Almost any Super is going to give you a romance plus a hometown, plus extended family or friends, plus a satisfying subplot. Supers are like the boxed sets of romance series romance. They have everything you need and Bonus Features too!

Each month SuperRomance puts out six terrific, complex books. I encourage you to pick one up. I think you just might find yourself falling in love!

Wendy the Super Librarian: Thanks for stopping by Ellen! Readers, you can visit Ellen at her web site and her blog.

Contest Alert! Ellen has graciously donated books for us to giveaway to TGTBTU readers during our May HSR Spotlight! I will randomly draw the winner from the comments on this post at the end of May. The lucky winner will receive copies of both of Ellen’s HSR releases, Wanted Man and His Secret Past. Good luck!

Debra Salonen is one of the hardest working writers in the romance genre. Since the publication of her first book in 2000, she’s amassed an impressive back list and garnered a loyal following among Harlequin SuperRomance fans. May marks the publication of the first book in a new five-book series for the line that will keep her and readers busy well into 2009. Debra recently took time out of her busy schedule, and agreed to sit down to an interview. Enjoy!

Wendy the Super Librarian: When you were growing up, your parents owned and operated their own taxi cab company. Most writers have colorful work histories, but this is by far one of the more intriguing ones I’ve come across! What was it like working in the family business, and did it shape you as a writer?

Debra Salonen: My parents bought the taxi company when I was five. I started answering the phone shortly after. Since I didn’t know how to write at that point, I had to take a call and quickly repeat it on the radio so someone in the cabs could log it.

For example:

Taxi phone rings.

Caller: “Send a cab to 314-Lincoln Lane S. Right away. I’m late for church.” (Now, I would probably say, “You should have planned better. This is so not my problem.”)

5-yr old Deb: “3…1…4…Lincoln…Lane…south. Okay.”

5-yr old Deb hangs up the phone, picks up the bulky, gray metal walkie-talkie thing that requires you to press the button on the side to talk and relays the number. I’m told I was rather demanding about making sure someone heard me and intended to pick up the fare.

Numbers. Memory challenges. Early map work. Communication skills. This job was like preschool with a purpose. But the kicker came when my father told me he’d “put me on the payroll” once I learned to write.

5-yr old Deb: Writing equals money?

Can you say subliminal forces at work?

In hindsight, I think the taxi business MADE me a writer. And once I learned to drive, every fare offered a chance to stockpile yet another interesting character.

WtSL: Your first novel, That Cowboy’s Kids, was published in 2000 and in 8 years you’ve amassed an impressive backlist. What is your work schedule like?

DS: I’d always planned to write books, but I was convinced I needed the right amount of open time and most definitely the right space to do my ambition justice. Kids have a tendency to interrupt a lot, so I told myself I’d wait until my two were older before I started writing that novel. Then other things came up, like a full time job that really drained my creativity-newspapers frown on you making things up. But eventually I ran out of excuses. I didn’t have the perfect space-my first office didn’t have heat or AC so in the winter I worked with gloves and a space heater and in the summer I got up really early to avoid dripping sweat on my pages. And time was still a premium because my kids were teens and I’d started my own bookkeeping business.

But here’s what I learned: it’s never going to be the perfect time and it’s definitely not about space; it’s about putting words on paper.

Debbie Macomber typed her first manuscript at the kitchen table with kids scurrying around her. I wish I’d been as brave.

I now have two lovely offices – a right brain and a left brain office. Okay, my right brain office is more of an alcove, but it’s where you’ll find me when I’m on deadline. Every day -a minimum of one new scene or ten new pages–until the book is done. I sit in my recumbent chair, click on my laptop and start typing. In between deadlines, I’m in the other office doing all the stuff that comes with being a published author in this day and age: blogs, interviews, art pages, PR, website updates, MySpace, etc.

And, honestly, some days I give myself permission to play with my three granddaughters, 4, 2, and almost 1. Kids tend to interrupt and I appreciate that a lot more now, but they’re definitely worth the time.

WtSL: While you’ve tip-toed into some other Harlequin lines, you’ve pretty much stuck with SuperRomance. What do you love about the line, and why did you want to write for it?

DS: Before I sold my first book, I was all over the place-writing-wise. Mystery, romance, suspense, comedy. I read it all and loved it all. I wanted to write it all.

But after two or three rejections, I realized the only way to sell was to give editors what they were looking for. So, I went to the book store and picked up a dozen or so new books. I read them all, looking for a publisher or line that would be right for the story I had in mind. SuperRomance was a clear winner.

I had no understanding of the romance genre at the time. I didn’t know the difference between a series, a line and a category. But I liked the stories the SuperRomance authors were telling. They were bigger and more complex. The authors really got into their characters’ points of view. Some were sexy, some weren’t. This was important to me because the story I was writing involved two damaged children and I needed my hero and heroine to put the kids first, even while they were in the process of falling in love. That story became That Cowboy’s Kids. I queried, sent in three chapters, revised upon rejection, resubmitted and sold.

And, although I’ve had a single title, Betting On Grace, with Signature and 3 connected books with Harlequin American, my first love has remained SuperRomance. The editors have always been open to pushing the proverbial envelope. (In Wonders Never Cease my heroine spent time in the body of the hero’s aging police dog, and in Love, By George one of the main characters is a Great Dane.) The book I’m working on now has a shared dream sequence that is slightly paranormal. I’ve always been told: “Whatever works works.” For a writer, that’s like the golden ticket to the chocolate factory.

WtSL: I know your writing keeps you busy, but a librarian has got to ask – what do you like to read? Any favorite authors?

DS: I always forget to put someone on my list and regret it later. You know what it’s like when you walk into the bookstore and promptly forget which book you went there to buy? That’s how I am with lists. But here are a few names that jump to mind: Susan Crosby, Jean Brashear, Brenda Novak, Kathy Shay, Eileen Rendahl, Alisa Kwitney, Elizabeth Berg, Laurell K. Hamilton, Judith Arnold, Randy Wayne White, Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Pollen, Isabelle Allende, Pat Potter, John Irving, Michael Critchton…to name a few.

Here are a couple of books that I’ve enjoyed recently and haven’t had a chance to check out others by the author: A Gentle Rain by Deborah Smith, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and The Red Tent by Anita Diamant .

I’m currently reading two books: I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron and Three Cups Of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.

I belong to a readers group and we have a diverse cross-section of reading likes and dislikes. I think this is an excellent way to expand your reading horizons. My September release, His Brother’s Secret, is dedicated to the members of my book club.

WtSL: The first book in your Sentinel Pass series, Baby By Contract, debuts this month and it looks like this five book series is going to keep you busy through 2009! Tell us a little bit about the series.

DS: Think: “The Bachelor” meets “Northern Exposure.”

Sentinel Pass is an imaginary town in the Black Hills of South Dakota. SOUTH Dakota. That’s SOUTH of North Dakota. (I don’t know why anyone would mix these two up-have you ever seen North Dakota?, but it happens all the time.) Hint: the HBO series “Deadwood” was set here, Mount Rushmore is here, Dances With Wolves was filmed here, it’s just next door to Devil’s Tower…

Anyway, Sentinel Pass is a tiny town that really isn’t ready for its close-up. Then, its favorite daughter makes a teeny tiny mistake-she uses the Internet to offer part ownership in her family’s gold mine in return for viable sperm…”some restrictions apply.” And the delicious hunk who convinces her he’s the right guy to fulfill this contract is Cooper Lindstrom, a Hollywood bad boy with some serious baggage that includes his late mother’s bookie who is out for blood-Coop’s.

I can’t tell you how much fun I had with this book. I’ve been waiting all my life to open a romance novel with the words: “Pay up or die.”

The subsequent books belong to Libby’s “Wine, Women and Words” book club members: Jenna, Kat and Char. And squeezed in there somewhere will be Libby’s brother, Mac’s, story.

I love the Hills and I hope my stories and my characters do justice to the wonderful Black Hills mystique. If you haven’t been there, maybe reading my “Spotlight on Sentinel Pass’ series will encourage you to go. But you can always check out the photos from my research trip on my website.

WtSL: Debra, thanks so much for joining us for TGTBTU’s HSR Spotlight!

DS: Thank you, Wendy!

Contest Alert! Debra has graciously donated books for us to give away to TGTBTU readers during our May HSR Spotlight! I will randomly draw winners from the comments (from all the HSR Spotlight posts) at the end of May. Two grand prize winners will receive three titles: Baby By Contract, Love By George and A Baby On The Way. Three runner up winners will receive a copy of Debra’s May release, Baby By Contract.

I was introduced to Kathryn Shay back in 2002 when I was assigned to review Practice Makes Perfect. After finishing the story with a contented sigh, I e-mailed the editor I was writing reviews for at the time and asked her, “Where has Kathryn Shay been all my life?” To which she replied, “Oh Wendy! You must read her America’s Bravest series!” What resulted was one of my more serious author gloms, and Shay is now not only my favorite SuperRomance author, but one of my favorite romance authors. Period. As part of TGTBTU’s continued spotlight on Harlequin SuperRomance this month, Shay graciously agreed to sit down for an interview. Enjoy!

Wendy the Super Librarian: Certainly your first few novels were well-received and regarded, but I think it was the arrival of your America’s Bravest series for SuperRomance that really put your name out there for many romance readers. At the time, writing about firefighters wasn’t exactly old hat, and female firefighters? Talk about different! How did you hit upon the idea for this series?

Kathryn Shay: I decided to write about firefighters because I’ve always respected and admired them. They wake up every morning knowing they’re potentially going to put their lives in danger, knowing they may not make it home that night. (Truthfully, I don’t know how their spouses live with that, although I’ve tried to investigate it in my novels.) But I knew very little about their daily lives, their thought processes, their hopes and goals. As you might guess, SuperRomance loved the idea, and wanted a trilogy instead of the two books I proposed. This turned into a total of five firefighter books (so far!) for them.

To expound a bit, I was able to find out about these brave men and women mostly through primary research. I met with them at the fire houses, ate lunches and dinners with them, talked to them until the late hours of the night and heard remarkable stories: how it feels finding a dead victim; how the wear and tear of the job is hard on their families; how devastated they all were during 9/11; how not one of them considers himself or herself a hero. I also got to ride the trucks to fires, stabbings, EMS calls and flooded basements. Though it all, my respect and admiration for them deepened immensely.

WtSL: Your background is in teaching, which I think shines through in many of your stories. How has your work with adolescents shaped your writing?

KS: Definitely. I’ve written several books with heroes or heroines in the teaching profession. My favorite SuperRomance is Cop Of The Year, where the heroine is the kind of teacher I was. Some of the incidents in the book happened to me. But more so, I think my job helped me to really know adolescents, which serves me well when I create teenagers in any books. My lastest Super, Be My Babies, has a great teen in it and I think you can see how much love I have for that age group. By the way, I can always tell when someone writes a book and doesn’t have first hand experience with adolescents. You gotta know those kids to write about them!

WtSL: Like many writers, you went through your fair share of rejections before you sold your first book to SuperRomance. Did you intentionally set out to target that line or was it happenstance?

KS: No, I intentionally set out to get published by anybody! Though it only lasted three years, enduring all those rejections was tough. You have to understand, too, that I was in unusual circumstances. I was older, married with two kids and had a job I loved. My life was great-and then I went and wrote a book. The process of getting published took over our lives and I began to wonder why on earth I had started this. My family was supportive and, when I sold my first book, they were elated. But the process itself was excruciating for a forty year old with a near-perfect life.

Readers should know I received about 60 rejections from publishing houses and agents until a now-retired editor from Super pulled my first successful manuscript out of the slush pile.

WtSL: You have since branched out into contemporary single titles, but have routinely returned to SuperRomance. What makes you keep coming back to the line? What do you enjoy about writing for them?

KS: I love SuperRomance and always have. I feel like I grew up there as a writer. First they give me freedom to write what I want, though I did hear my editor say once in a while, “You want to do what?”

Second, I think the line is varied, allowing readers many different types of stories. I write primarily family drama with lots of emotion, but I’ve also done some romantic suspense for them. And finally, my editors have been wonderful there. I became good friends with Zilla Soriano, now retired, and I love my new editor, Wanda Ottewell, who became senior editor shortly after I was assigned to her.

WtSL: I’m a librarian, so I have to ask – what do you like to read? Any favorite authors?

KS: Absolutely! Nora Roberts, Linda Howard and Susan Elizabeth Philips. I also enjoy John Irving, Margaret Atwood and Jodi Picoult.

WtSL: The latest book in your single title O’Neil series is out this month. Can you tell us a little bit about it, and do you have any HSR titles currently in the works?

KS: Taking The Heat is about widower Liam O’Neil who lost his wife three years ago to cancer and is ready to date again. He meets Sophie Tyler, rough and tumble female firefighter from the FDNY, and is attracted to her. But his sons are still suffering over the loss of their mother and Liam feels he can’t risk getting involved with someone in a dangerous profession. Too bad, though, because they can’t help themselves and sparks fly, emotionally, physically and on the line.

I have two Supers in the works which will be out in January and August of 2009. The first is completed, tentatively titled A Twist Of Fate. It’s the story of a woman who has a car accident and wakes up without her memory. There are two men in her life, the one she dates and her best friend. But as the story unfolds, it becomes unclear who she’s really in love with.

Right now, I’m writing After The Fall, the story of an architect who’s responsible for the collapse of part of a building, and goes to the small town of Carson City to spend time with her college roommate and his family who loves her. There she meets a contractor who, quite frankly, wants to run her out of town.

My editor and I are also planning a trilogy for 2010, but you’ll have to wait to hear about that one!

WtSL: Wow! Lots of exciting stuff in the works! Thanks so much for joining us Kathryn!

They say confession is good for the soul. Despite a brief infatuation when I was a teenager, by the time I got out of college, my lip would curl in distaste if the words “romance novels” were even mentioned to me. Yeah, I was one of those.

I’m not proud of it, but there you have it. I blame my ignorance on the years I spent in academia earning the two college degrees that were necessary for me to get my dream job as a librarian. I got out quicker than most, but the trauma left me slightly warped.I quickly changed my tune when I landed a job buying adult fiction for a small, rural library system. We had a whole lot of romance readers using the library, and none of them looked like pathetic bored housewives who sat around eating bon-bons and wearing feather boas. I decided that it might be possible (just possible mind you) that my opinion of the genre was slightly “off.” So I started frequenting online romance review sites, went clicking through the positive reviews, and started checking out books.

It didn’t take long for me to get hooked.

That being said, my snobbery was still firmly intact. Because while I now admitted to loving romance novels it’s not like I was reading ::gasp:: Harlequins!

What can I say? I’m a slow learner.

I’ve learned over the years that my misguided opinion of the category format was not unique. There are plenty of romance readers out there who love the genre, but the thought of reading a Harlequin is too much for their fragile little minds to handle. The dopey titles, the shorter page count, the “hooks” found in many of the plots – they just cannot get past all that. To which I reply: “Why not try a SuperRomance?”

SuperRomance is one of the longest category lines that Harlequin offers, which means readers not only get a strong, central love story, but there can also be secondary characters and sub plots thrown into the mix. SuperRomance has a little bit more meat on the bone, and are often emotionally charged stories featuring conflict central to the lives of every day women. The characters are what I call “normies.” Normal, real, authentic characters. I often say that the characters in a SuperRomance are people you could see at the grocery store, your son’s little league game, or walking down the street.

All this translates into solid, honest-to-goodness contemporary romance. No vampires. No Dukes. No serial killers. SuperRomance stories give hope to the rest of us that yes, romance is possible. Yes, we too can fall in love. And no, we don’t have to wait for a Greek tycoon to knock on our door in order for it to happen.

So sit back, relax, and join us here at TGTBTU as we spotlight the Harlequin SuperRomance line all during the month of May. If you’re already a fan of the line, share with us why you love it. And if you’ve never read one before? We’re going to pull out all the stops to try and convert you.

Contest Alert! Debra Salonen has graciously donated books for us to give away to TGTBTU readers during our May HSR Spotlight! I will randomly draw winners from the comments (from all the HSR Spotlight posts) at the end of May. Two grand prize winners will receive three titles: Baby By Contract, Love By George and A Baby On The Way. Three runner up winners will receive a copy of Debra’s May release, Baby By Contract.