My Name is Ranae, and I'm a Scottophile.

Or, to be more specific, a Highland-ophile, if you can excuse my making up a word. Today, I'm blogging about my favorite subgenre with the oh-so-wide romance spectrum -- as you've probably guessed, it's Historical Scottish Highland Romance.

The danger! The adventure! The good old fashioned sex appeal of manly men in tartan who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty! And let's not forget the chest hair.


I think I first fell head over heels for these sorts of books when I read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander - aka my favorite book and series of all time. But even before then, I had all the makings of a diehard highland romance fan: a deep obsession with plaid that began in childhood and is still with me today, a love of red hair and an almost rabid enthusiasm over Nessie, the famous Loch Ness Monster (can't even say how many times I've annoyed traveling companions with Nessie documentaries in hotel rooms). It was meant to be, really. My DNA strands weave together into a tartan pattern instead of forming a double-helix.


I read recently that something like 80% of women consider Italian men to be the sexiest of all nationalities. I can only conclude from this statistic that at least 80% of women have never heard of Scottish heroes like Jamie Fraser, which is a shame, as they're really missing out!


Here's a scene of Jamie and Clare together from 'The Exile' (the Outlander graphic novel which was illustrated by the super-talented Hoang Nguyen and features tons of beautiful pictures).

A red-headed Highland hero charging around on horseback with a beautiful poofy-haired brunette heroine? I'm sold! (We poofy-haired women, like red-heads, are often underappreciated for our stand-out locks. I think it should be the other way around! Diana just got everything right with Outlander! Anyway...)

*Ahem*. Back to my main point - I love historical highland romances, more than any other type of story!

What sub-genre of romance do you enjoy reading the most?

And on the subject of highland romances, I plan to share some exciting news here soon, but that's a topic for another post. ;)

Six Sentence Sunday - Eternity and a Year

Brendan leant back from her neck, breathing a wistful sigh. “I might,” he said, “if you don’t stop almost getting yourself killed. I might just do it and lock you away somewhere where I can keep you safe.” He shifted away from her a little even as he spoke, allowing her enough room to slip her fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans. She pushed the button through its hole, freeing his erection to rise from the parted fabric. “But for now,” he said as her hand closed around his cock, “I guess you’ll be safe enough in my arms.”

Coming August 22nd from Total E-Bound. Available now for pre-order.

Having already lost her fiancé once, Carrie is determined to love him for the eternity that he's promised her this time - even if he is a vampire, and being hunted by another who's already proven that she'll kill for him.

Read another excerpt from Eternity and a Year here.

Aliens: Hot or Not?

  One of the songs currently tearing up the charts (here in the US, anyway) is Katy Perry's 'E.T.', a song about falling for, well, an extra terrestrial. Personally, I love this song (with the exception of Kanye West's interludes). Not only is it catchy, but I love aliens. (Well, they sort of creep me out at times, but I like to think about them maybe being real anyway and I love movies about them. I can't resist a good creature of questionable reality.)

  I've always wanted to write a story involving aliens. Being the romance writer that I am, it would probably be, well, a romance. But would either my hero or heroine be an alien, like in the E.T. music video? That depends on how hot aliens are or aren't, and nobody really knows the answer to that question. I sincerely hope that they aren't faun-like creatures with antelope hindquarters and legs like in Katy Perry's video (who thought that was a sexy idea? Ugh.) But I also don't know how I'd justify a character's attraction to an alien as they're often portrayed in movies -- Gumbi-like beings with flat, triangular heads and bug eyes.

  Personally, I like to imagine aliens as more human-like, despite the fact that it doesn't seem very likely. I mean, what are the chances that an entirely seperate race on a faraway planet would evolve to look much like us? The unlikelyhood is a shame, really, because if aliens look anything like their TV portrayals, they definately got the short end of the stick. But, using my imagination, I think I could write a pretty hot alien. Or, there's always the possibility of writing the genetically-engineered-by-nefarious-aliens super-human hero. Engineered to be stronger, healthier and hotter than any human before him, and raised among aliens, he always felt like an outsider. Then, when his space ship crashes on earth he meets the human girl of his dreams. That's not cheating, is it? lol

  What about you? Do you prefer to think of aliens as human-like and possibly sexy, or as big-headed stick figures? Or maybe even scary monsters?

Six Sentence Sunday - Glazed

This Sunday's six was pulled from my most recently finished work, Glazed.

   Then the truck’s driver emerged from the cab, and her heart flew past overdrive, launching itself into a turbo-charged thumping spree.

   “You,” she gasped, her voice escaping her dry mouth as little more than a whisper.

   Her would-be killer grimaced, his mouth turning down into a spectacular frown as he looked her up and down with a set of deep brown eyes, apparently searching for damage.  “I know,” he said, “I’m a jackass.”

  “No,” Kelly said, still too shocked by her brush with death to assign blame. “You’re the naked guy.”

  I'm planning on kicking back today, and as this is the most light-hearted story I've written, it seemed appropriate. Hope you enjoyed! If you'd like to read another brief excerpt from this story, click here.


  For those who read my blog regularly, this baby has worked its way into some editors' inboxes, and I hope to share good news sometime with in the upcoming weeks or months.

The Great, Green Heroes of my Childhood (My First Crushes)

You may have noticed that I tend to write blue-collar heroes. However, there was a time when my idols were distincly...green. Today I'm confessing to my earliest crushes - as a small child, I was totally head-over-heels for these two hearthrobs:

Peter Pan 

As a pre-schooler, I used to walk to the library every day with my mom and rent Disney's Peter Pan on VHS. Yep, every day. (As an adult, I have my own copy on DVD, for my son, of course... Yeah right! It's still one of my favorite movies of all time, and I bought it years before I ever became a mother. lol)

Peter was a bit of a smartass, but I was willing to look past that. He was fun loving, adventurous, eternally young and hey, he could fly! What I would have given to have been in Tigerlilly's mocassins for a day!

He never did show up at my bedroom window to whisk me off to Neverland, but I still have a huge thing for redheads, and as my video collection evidences, I don't want to grow up!

Rafael, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

Ah, Raf. The consummate bad boy, er, turtle. He oozed teenage angst, and I couldn't resist. And the way he dealt justice to Shredder and hosts of other bad guys - just look at those muscles! My heart would flutter when Raf stormed out on the others, so angry he was willing even to skip pizza. I've always loved a tortured hero. Being rather tempramental myself, he seemed like a relatable character. I bet he's a Scorpio, just like me.

I've never felt a mutant turtle's embrace, but I did study martial arts all the way into adulthood. Thank you for the inspiration, Raf - maybe one day I'll join you in cleaning up the streets of NYC.

So now that you've had a laugh at me...who were your first crush(es)?

Oh, and P.S. Though I apparently had a thing for green, red was my favorite color. I so appreciated Peter and Rafael's tasteful crimson accessories.

Six Sentence Sunday - Taken Hostage

The car hit a particularly nasty bump in the road, and Tiffany’s eyes flew open. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, and she squinted against it. Her heart beat fiercely, and every inch of the skin between her legs throbbed, longing for the dreamed-of touch. Tiffany blushed crimson and stole a glance at her captor, whose hands were dry and planted firmly on the wheel.

            ‘Morning,’ he said.

            Tiffany blushed deeper, and tried to squash down an irrational fear of him being able to read minds.


Taken Hostage will be released by Embrace Books this summer! I'll post the exact release date here on my blog as soon as it become available. Meanwhile, here's the gist of the story:

Tiffany is taken on the run as a hostage when the bank she works at is robbed. When the gorgeous gunman offers to let her return to safety, Tiffany realizes there are many things she wants to do to him, but walking away isn’t one of them.

 Hope you enjoyed this Sunday's Six! :)

P.S. In case anyone's wondering why this went live on Saturday instead of Sunday - I autoscheduled this because I was supposed to be out of state. Blogger seems to have decided that it would prefer to post this today instead. (Surprise! Surprise!) Guess it just couldn't wait for the next tidbit from Tiffany and James' story! This site has a mind of it's own...

Hands on Research (My Unglamourous Mini-Apocalypse)

  Normally, I would have put up my Wednesday blog post this morning. Today though, I was out doing what could possibly be called story 'research' (hint: writers can call anything 'research'). Usually, I'm one to take advantage of ambiguous but fun 'research' opportunities. Like a few weeks ago when I blogged about how I was suffering through a box of donuts and coffee for the sake of what was then my current work in progress (which by the way is finished, and you can read a brief excerpt here). Voluntary suffering...not so much. But when you're writing a post-apocalyptic story what else is hands-on experience going to consist of?


  So I miserably spent today and yesterday trampling around for 10 hours a day in the blazing 98 degree sunshine, covering the downtown and business districts of two different cities mostly on foot (I had a good reason for doing this, but it's too devoid of excitement for me to bore you with). It wasn't exactly the recently-nuked desert that my heroine calls home, and it wasn't the end of the world - althought at times it certainly felt like it. Maybe that's because I'm not an ex-Army Ranger like my heroine. I'll just blame that on the convenient fact that's not allowed yet. I also didn't have to shoot any raging coyote monsters or fight off any raiders, but that's really besides the point. I'm not completely sure what the point is, but I now have 100% confidence in my ability to write about blisters, dehydration and sweat-soaked clothing with morbid attention to detail.


  If I was going to be a heroine from some sort of romance novel, it would probably be best if I was a vampiress (like Carrie from my book Eternity and a Year), because I generally dislike sunshine. And not just because of the past couple of days. In fact, I'm not so sure I'd survive the apolocalypse at all - at least not if it occurs the way I've written it.


  So another Wednesday is coming to an end, and I've thrilled you with tales of my blisters the news that I'm writing a post-apocalyptic romance (which, by the way, is even hotter than the miserable weather I've been telling you about). I can't wait to settle down at my safely shady desk and get back to work on it, and to eventually share more news and excerpts when it's completed.  I hope some of you love post-apocalyptic stories as much as I do! I also hope that when I look back at this blog post after having fueled back up on sleep and liquids that I don't think it's lame enough to claim some sort of heat-induced mental disorientation. ;) lol

Six Sentence Sunday - Glazed

   So, I figured that after Wednesday's 'Coffee Box Romance' post, I should share an excerpt from that story for this Six Sentence Sunday. (Cliffnotes for those who didn't read that post: I recently finished a book. Donuts, coffee and accidental public nudity are essential to the plot. LOL) Anyway, here's my six from my recently finished story, which I'm calling 'Glazed':

    Kelly smiled – no, grinned – back, feeling like a dope. He had a great smile – the kind that made you want to smile back twice as big. And then, there was the equally grin-worthy memory of his butt, escaped in all its toned glory from the towel. She thought of the snapshot she’d accidentally taken of it and her purse felt suddenly heavy, as if her cellphone had magically morphed into a brick. Or was that just the weight of her guilt? She tried not to imagine what this man might say if he knew she was toting around a picture of his bare ass.

 

Coffee Box Romance (Unlikely Inspiration)

  I'm often asked where I get 'ideas' for my stories. The truth is that they pop into my head suddenly, take root, and grow like weeds until I bang them out on the keyboard. But my ideas aren't always totally random. In fact, I can easily point out the exact object that inspired my most recently-finished book. So, here it is:

  Yes, a coffee box. The same coffee box pictured, to be exact. I may have a slight obsession with cute pictures of food, so this coffee's adorable packaging made it the obvious choice when I was grocery shopping (and it actually tastes great too, for the record). But it didn't stop there. I took it home and sat it on my little green shelf in my kitchen, where it proceeded to spark an awesome idea. Coffee and donuts - a heavenly combination. What could possibly make it better? The answer is obvious: super-hot romance. Perfect combination, right? Well, I thought so, and before I knew it, an entire story had unfolded in my mind. It had it all - a hunky donut-shop owner, a heroine with dreams of opening her own coffee cafe, a very naked scandal and some extremely fun uses for donut glaze. How could I not write it?

  I sped through the writing, fueled by the coffee and donuts I consumed in the name of research, and now I'm getting this baby ready to go out into the world. I'll share more about it here on my blog when I have publishing news. Between now and then, I'm sure to start my next book. Who knows what will inspire it? I don't, but I sort of hope its something yummy again.