Tropology: Heroes and Girlfriends

It’s a common trope in novel series that the tough-guy hero who solves mysteries and kicks ass will get a new love interest each time out. The gold standard, of course, is James Bond, who often gets several new women in every book or movie. But it goes all the way back to The Odyssey, in which Odysseus manages to … Read More

How Have Things Changed?

A while back, fan Keith Johnson asked a deceptively simple question: “How has your writing changed from your first book to the last one?” As I’ve explained elsewhere, my first published novel, The Sword-Edged Blonde, was an idea I’d nursed from 1980 to its publication in 2007. My second novel, Blood Groove, as well as my most recent, Wisp of … Read More

The grubby heirs of Excalibur: swords in the world of Eddie LaCrosse

My friend Teresa Frohock, author of Miserere: An Autumn Tale (my review is here), asked me how the idea for naming Eddie LaCrosse’s swords came about. I thought this might be interesting to others as well. First came the idea of writing the initial novel, The Sword-Edged Blonde, as if it were a 40s detective novel. This was after years–well, … Read More

The origin of character names: Eddie LaCrosse

One of the most common questions I get from fantasy fans is, “Why is your hero named ‘Eddie’?” Naming characters, especially the main characters of continuing series, is an art far more than a science. For example, one of my favorite characters, Robert B. Parker’s Spenser, has a first name, but in the 40 books Parker wrote (and who knows … Read More

The apocryphal soundtracks to some of my books

It’s no secret that music is a big part of many of my novels, from inspiring the titles to influencing the plots to being part of the story itself. I’m not alone in this, I’m sure. Recently my friends at Facebook’s Heroic Fiction League, Nathan Long and John R. Fultz, posted “playlists” of YouTube videos, songs that either their heroes … Read More

International Eddie

Here’s the German cover art for The Sword-Edged Blonde; the title translates as The King’s Sword, which is a reasonably accurate alternate title (and definitely looks cool in German).  Available in Germany April 9! This actually does look a lot like I envisioned the younger Eddie from the flashback scenes.  And here’s an exclusive tidbit you’ll only find here: Young Eddie … Read More

The Strange Case of the Inadvertent Exorcism

It’s no secret that The Sword-Edged Blonde, the first Eddie LaCrosse novel (and my first novel, period), was inspired in part by the Fleetwood Mac song “Rhiannon.”  I was twelve when the song was released, and since I grew up in the era of rock-oriented FM radio, I heard it a lot.  And it never failed to captivate me.  Remember, … Read More