A Weekend Away...

By Robin "Red Hot" Kaye

My youngest daughter, Mini-me and I took a mini vacation to Colonial Williamsburg this weekend—just the two of us. It isn’t often we get away together. It seems as if for the last five years I’ve been on deadline as I am now. So why, you may ask, am I romping around Colonial Williamsburg when my book is due in 16 days? My only answer is: Because, maternal guilt is a very powerful motivator.

As usual, this is all my husband’s fault. He took our other two kids out backpacking for five days over Fourth of July weekend leaving Mini-me and me at home with the dogs. Not that there is anything wrong with the dogs. They’re cute, cuddly, and you know, loyal. But it’s not as if Mini-me and I got to do anything fun.

Now, between you, me, and the doorknob, Mini-me and I don’t think backpacking is much fun—after all it involves bugs, a hell of a lot of walking, poison ivy, going to the bathroom in the woods, and eating freeze-dried food, but that’s not the point. The point is that they got to do something they thought was fun and we didn’t.

When my husband and the kids came home, I told them that Mini-me and I were going away just the two of us to do something fun which would not involve woods (we’re allergic), too much walking, bad food (we’re food snobs), bugs (that darn allergy thing again) and questionable toilet facilities (just because we know how to shit in the woods, doesn’t mean we want to). I had no idea what we were going to do, but I had a strong feeling it would involve someplace with 24-hour room service.

Luckily I found a great deal through Travel Zoo, signed up, and even paid for it. Two nights in Colonial Williamsburg was ours any Sunday through Thursday, the only catch was that it had to be used by September 27th. No problem. After all we had the whole summer. September was months away.

Isn’t it amazing how time flies while you’re not having fun? Well, we had some fun. After all, if you’ve followed the blog you’ve read allabout my trip to Idaho.

Right after I killed myself to make my deadline for Back To You: Bad Boys of Red Hook, my editor asked if I could write a novella, Hometown Girl, to introduce the new series. I said, sure, no problem. I whipped that puppy out, had a fabulous time writing it, sent it in (a few days early in fact—a first for me) and went back to my contracts to see when my next book was due...Imagine my surprise when I realized it You're The One: Bad Boys of Red Hook was due October 1!

Now mind you, this was mid-August and I hadn’t even written the synopsis for You're The One. Any sane person would have gone into apoplectic shock. It’s a good thing I’m not sane. I just thought I’d hunker down and write like the wind. No problem.

Then my husband went missing. (See above—it’s all my husband’s fault) Okay, so he wasn’t missing in a literal sense. If you read my last blog here at Killer Fiction you’d know that for the last few months he’s been working 16 – 20 hour days, seven days a week. Now that I think about it, the last weekend he had off was when he and the kids went hiking.

So instead of hunkering down and writing like the wind, I spent the majority of time not only in deadline hell, but in deadline hell without my domestic god to do laundry, cleaning, and at least the partial feeding of kids and dogs. Yeah, I was on my own, rediscovering how much I dislike housework, laundry, and taking care of teenagers on my own. Every time something came up, my work got put down and when school started and things got really crazy. It was then it occurred to me that I still had a promise to keep. I had to take Mini-me to Williamsburg and I had to do it on a holiday—Mini-me couldn’t afford to miss more than one day of school.

Thank God for Rosh Hashannah! So here I am, running all over Williamsburg with Mini-me and having a great time.

See... I got to put Mini-me in the stocks to show her what happened in the olden days when teenagers didn’t listen to their mothers.

We enjoyed looking at the dresses women wore, but Mini-me decided that if she had lived back in the colonial days, it would have been “way better to be a dude.”

We ate at the King’s Arms Tavern—twice. Yeah, it was really that good...

We shopped...

And did our share of flirting with the men in uniform.

There is really something to be said for men in tight breeches. 

I can't wait until we see what trouble we can get into tomorrow morning before we leave. I have a feeling it's going to involve a candy store and the world's longest Gummy Worm...

So? What have you done in the name of maternal guilt, or if that’s not a problem for you, what was the last time you went out and did something fun, even if it wasn’t at all convenient?

It's Here! It's Here!

By Robin "Red Hot" Kaye

Can you tell I'm a little excited? 

Call Me Wild   

She doesn't know a single thing about relationships...

Unemployed sportswriter Jessie James plans to make a killing writing a bestselling romance novel. She's never read one, but really, how hard can it be? Moving cross-country to a borrowed house in Idaho, Jessie starts her research with the first gorgeous guy she runs into...

Luckily, he knows everything...

Sports doctor Fisher Kincaid notices Jessie right away--the transplanted Easterner sticks out like a sore thumb in the small town. When he discovers she's researching attraction and romance, he graciously offers himself as a test subject. That's when everything starts to go wrong, and they both find out how much they need a few good lessons in love...

Okay, it's not officially out until August 1, but it's been spotted in stores already so it counts, doesn't it? 

Either way, it's getting awesome reviews! 

Sarah Eisenbraunoh at RT gave it 4-Stars:


"Kaye’s latest is smart and entertaining, especially for contemporary romance fans who love athletics and healthy living. Jessie’s sporty persona adds an original spin to the typical female romance protagonist. (She even uses RT Book Reviews as a research source for her novel, so how can we not love her?) As the leading man, Fisher is more than hot, and his sexy bond with Jessie will keep readers glued until the last page. Fans of Kaye’s past work and contemporary romance readers alike will definitely enjoy their time with this novel."

PW says:


"The frothy, fun plot and intriguing secondary characters provide ample support for this opposites-attract romance."




Shelley Mosley at Booklist says: 


"Kaye’s fast-paced and funny tale will appeal to readers who like their romance novels side-splitting and sexy."


I'm giving away a signed copy of Call Me Wild--To Enter, just leave a comment and tell me what Andrew's nickname for Jessie is, and leave your email address. You might want to write it all out. You know, like Robin at RobinKayeWrites dot com so no one starts sending you spam.
The answer is in Chapter One which I posted on my website. Enjoy!



Oh, and if that isn't exciting enough. I just received the cover of my next book!

 Back To You

The first book in my Bad Boys of Red Hook Series! 

So, what do you think? Isn't it gorgeous?




It would take a miracle for Storm Decker to return to Red Hook--or a tragedy. The neighborhood holds too many painful memories of his troubled childhood, including the mistake that sent him running from  the ex-cop he'd come to consider his father. But when Pete suddenly falls ill, Storm is called home to face the past he tried to leave behind long ago....


Breanna Collins never expected to see Storm again after he left town without a word, breaking her heart. She's angry that he can't seem to appreciate the changes in their neighborhood. But she still feels a powerful connection to her old flame. And unless she can remind him of all the reasons to stay, she knows he'll never stick around long enough to give their romance the second chance it deserves....

The End

By Robin 'Red Hot' Kaye



Last Sunday was one of my favorite days as a writer—the day I finally wrote The End. This was a good thing since Back To You was due on my editor’s desk the next day. I drove home from meeting my lovely critique partners at Starbucks knowing I had to write this blog and I thought about the experience of writing this book.

Every book is different, and no two experiences are going to be the same, but having just finished my seventh book, I’m beginning to see trends and subtle changes in my writing process.

With every book, I find that writing the beginning and the end gets more difficult. It’s been my experience that the book will be almost finished for the longest time, but I go back and rewrite the beginning and the end over and over and over again. A book not only has to begin with a hook, it has to end with a hook. It has to make the reader want to reach for my next book and unfortunately for me, hooks are not easy to come by. So I’ve been writing and rewriting the end of the Back To You. I’m still not happy with it.

I sent the manuscript in on time and received an email from my editor telling me she’s not going to be able to look at it for a few weeks so I still have time to change my mind about the end, and, knowing me, I’ll take another crack at it.

I’m impossible to please so I thank God for both deadlines and revisions. Most authors hear that and think, is she masochistic? Maybe, but I see revisions as a chance to catch all the things I missed the first time around. I know, I’m a sick, sick puppy.

I’ve seen a lot of changes in my writing process during the writing of Back To You because I didn’t have the time I had to write that I had with my previous books. I’ve always been a pretty clean writer. I write a scene and I don’t move on until I’m happy with it. It’s the same way with a chapter, but in the past, I’ve read and reread the book countless times before I actually finished it. Not this time. I just didn’t have the time to devote several hours to reading the book when I needed to be writing the darn thing. Because of that, last weekend was the first time I sat down to read the entire book. I met with my critique partners and we read the book aloud from beginning to end. I went to our meeting with a good bit of trepidation. Truth be told, I was sick. I was sure that the book would be awful. Actually, I think my exact words were, “God, I hope it doesn’t suck.” My Critique Partners (who I’m sure have a place in heaven with their names on it) told me I was wrong. Me, I just prayed they were right. I have to tell you, the torture went on the entire two days we read. I’d say “Okay, the first 115 pages are good, but what about the next 285?”

I might be shooting myself in the foot because my editor has yet to read it, but I have to say, it was much better than I thought it would be, which in laymen terms means I’m pretty sure it doesn’t suck. I kept waiting for it to, and although there were a few rough sentences that needed to be rewritten, and more spelling and punctuation mistakes than I thought existed in the world, all in all, I’m happier with this book than I had been with any of the others. Mind you, I hadn’t had much sleep and I was hurled into allergy season, so I might have been delusional, but at least I’m a happy delusional.

I’ll do one more read-through and send the manuscript back to my lovely editor by Monday morning, at which time I’ll suffer with a bad case of agita until I hear from her. It’s a good thing I already have my next assignment—writing the synopsis for my next Domestic Gods Gone Wild book, Something Wild. I have my work cut out for me but at the end of the day, I’ll still be praying that my editor calls me and says, “I loved it.”



Gosh that feels good!