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Heather Blackmore

The Master of Romance

9/18/2016

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Reblogged from Women and Words.

To celebrate this week’s general release of my second romance, For Money or Love—now available at Amazon, Bold Strokes Books and other fine book stores, yippee!!!—I want to talk about the Master of Romance.
 
Forget Danielle Steel, Jackie Collins, Nora Roberts, and Nicholas Sparks. The undisputed master of romance is, of course:
 
Bernie Madoff.
 
No? The biggest financial swindler of all time isn’t on your romance radar? Perhaps he should be.
 
You’re thinking, “This Heather Blackmore person is nuttier than a jar of Jif.”
 
Undoubtedly. But I digress.
 
For those of you unfamiliar with Bernie, he was arrested in 2008 after admitting to one of the largest investor frauds in world history—a Ponzi scheme of $65 billion.
 
One definition of romance is, “to invent or relate romances; indulge in fanciful or extravagant stories or daydreams.” Think Don Quixote.
                                                                                                                                                      
Bernie Madoff concocted an extravagant story for the ages. And investors bought it.
 
Yet before I get into details about this key piece of inspiration for my novel, let me dispel any hearsay: For Money or Love is a love story, not a financial thriller.
 
It’s a story of two women from diverse backgrounds, each coming to terms with who she wants to be versus who she is, because the woman she’s falling for makes her strive to be a better person.
 
In the 270 page paperback, there are 3 pages—spread over multiple scenes—devoted to the characters’ difficulties in understanding the finances of Magnate, the fictional Madoff-like investment firm.
 
Those few pages of financial-speak are an important aspect of the story. The Madoff-like character has perpetrated a massive fraud extending nearly two decades (not unlike Madoff). How it’s finally discovered, the reasons it’s flown under the radar for so long, and the complete devastation it leaves in its wake are critical elements of the novel.
 
But it’s secondary to the romance. And thus only 3 pages.
 
And now back to Mr. Madoff.
 
Bernie lived the dream. According to an attorney for several Madoff victims, Bernie “moved in some of the best social circles in New York. He worked the best country clubs. He was utterly charming. He was a master at meeting people” and creating a near-superhero aura. He literally charmed people out of billions of dollars.


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There’s something very compelling about sweet-talking, charismatic, wealthy people. Just look at our multi-billion dollar celebrity news industry. Madoff ruined many lives and nonprofits due to his boundless greed, yet something about him made people look the other way, decide not to look too closely—SEC employees included.
 
For Money or Love is not a story of Mr. Madoff, yet it includes a fictional account of a woman who could almost have been his daughter.
 
My thinking went something like this:
What would it be like to have your entire life upended because you learned your parent was a criminal of the worst kind? What if the father or mother who tended your scraped knees, helped you with your homework, clapped proudly at your graduation, and hugged you when your first love broke your heart turned out to be an outrageous thief and liar?
 
What if you were the person who discovered and informed law enforcement of your parent’s scheme? (Madoff’s sons Mark and Andrew informed the feds as soon as they heard their father’s confession.) Would anyone believe you could be so ignorant, especially if you enjoyed the trappings of wealth enabled by the deception? Did anyone truly believe Ruth Madoff had no inkling of her husband’s treachery? How many folks thought Madoff’s sons acted nobly vs. selfishly to save their own hides? (Even Madoff’s former secretary—and they always know, right?—claimed no knowledge of his artifice despite 25 years of working for him.) How many of you believe that Ruth, Mark, and Andrew were just as duped as the rest of the world?
 
The Madoff family lost their fortune, friends, and reputation as a result of Bernie’s actions that affected, and in a number of cases ruined, thousands of businesses, charities, and individuals. Mark hanged himself with a dog leash on the second anniversary of his father's arrest. Andrew believed the stress caused by his father's actions opened the door for his cancer’s return (it later killed him). He said, “I will never forgive him for what he did. He's already dead to me.”
 
Madoff wove a fanciful tale of generating good, consistent returns—a romantic story of billion-dollar proportions. And unsuspecting investors bought into his mystique. Unfortunately, his fiction didn’t yield a happily-ever-after for anyone caught in his web of lies.
 
Although I’m already giving too much away by mentioning how Madoff influenced me, I want to share an excerpt from early in the book. TJ Blake recounts the disastrous first day of her internship to her teenage sister, Kara, which went awry when TJ and Jessica Spaulding (wealthy daughter of the firm’s founder) had lunch:

TJ didn’t require too much family time except for dinner, and typically Kara would immediately head to her room afterward. Tonight she lingered, rimming her water glass with her finger.

“How’d it go today?” Kara asked.

TJ spoke over her shoulder as she scrubbed the plates. “Fine, I suppose.”

“Must’ve been pretty bad for you to leave early.”

“The person I’ve been assigned to isn’t exactly…I’m not sure I can learn from her.”

“So, like, Mr. Ferris?” Kara’s freshman-year foreign-language teacher had been as helpful to the students learning Spanish as whistling to communicate with birds. Kara had complained, suggesting she’d learn more from Spanish language audiobooks than attending his class. TJ had agreed, and instead of suffering in his class each day, Kara went to the school library and followed the lessons. She was now in Spanish AP.

“I don’t know if she’s that bad, but we definitely don’t see eye to eye.”

“About what?”

TJ didn’t want to talk to Kara about her exchange with Jess. But it was rare these days for Kara to be so unguarded, and TJ didn’t want their time together to end. When their mom had died—which to TJ was far too passive a way to describe it—TJ had been forced into a guardianship for which she was ill prepared. Kara blamed herself for the loss while TJ blamed their mother. As Kara grew older, she retreated into her games, growing more sullen and standoffish.

Cars were the only thing these days that pulled Kara out of her doldrums, a subject that often put the two of them at odds. Their relationship had morphed into a bifurcated not-parent, not-sibling thing TJ couldn’t describe. Now, their closeness was sporadic. She didn’t know how much of Kara’s moodiness was due to normal teenage angst or to feeling worthless.

For several months after their mother’s passing, Kara, twelve at the time, had often cried that she wasn’t good enough—wasn’t enough, period—to keep her mother interested in this life. Since then, Kara never talked about their mother. And neither did TJ.

TJ set down the glass she was cleaning and dried her hands. Two chocolate muffins had been warming in the oven, which she tossed into two bowls. She dropped a dollop of ice cream onto each one and sat next to her sister, who immediately began to eat.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about something she said.” TJ interpreted Kara’s full-mouthed mumbled question as only a sibling could. “Scary I understood that.” TJ sucked on a small bite of the mint chocolate chip. “She asked if I weed out prospective dates based on income.”

“You talked with your boss about dating? On the first day?”

“Not talked about it, exactly. It came up.”

“Did she hit on you?”

“No! God, she’s straight as a pole.”

“Paulina Zeilinski just transferred from Warsaw, and she’s anything but.”

TJ pushed her sister’s shoulder. “Smart aleck. Fine. Straight as an arrow. Broom. Line.”

“How do you know she’s straight?”

“She wore a sign.”

Kara returned the shoulder push. “Do you?”

“Do I wear a sign?”

“Weed out prospective dates based on income?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like women come up to me and say, ‘Hi, I made two million last year and here’s a copy of my 1040. Want to have dinner?’”

“Probably not a great pick-up line.”

“For a lot of women, it would be.”

“Gross.”

“I know. But part of me thinks she’s right. What if I judge people based on how they live? More specifically, their earnings? How does that make me any different from people who judge me based on the sex of the person I prefer in my bed?”

Kara grinned and waggled her eyebrows. “Sex and bed. You never talk sex and bed.” She scooped another spoonful of ice cream and muffin into her mouth.

“Never mind.”

“She rich?”

“As Croesus.”

“Who?”

“Iranian Bill Gates, sixth century BC.” Unless a history lesson related to automobiles, Kara lost interest, so TJ often modernized and packaged historical facts into sound bites to keep their conversations on track.

“She hot?”

“What does that have to do…were you not here for the part about the arrows and lines?”

“What if…what if a beautiful, bright heiress worth bazillions asked you to dinner?”

“How could I enjoy the meal? How could I ever pay her back? I’d sit there and think of all the ways I’d fall short and how I couldn’t remotely give her anything she’s used to.”

“Why would you need to pay her back? Dude. Pretty—”

“Don’t call me dude.”

“Don’t interrupt. Pretty, smart heiress is—”

TJ scoffed. “You can scrap smart.”

“Goes without saying if someone asks you out. But dimwitted heiress is asking you on a date, not pulling out her little black bookie book to track who owes who.”

“Who owes whom. And I can’t accept something for nothing.”

“I’m speaking colloquially, Grammar Police. She wouldn’t be asking you to. She’d be asking you to respond with, like, part of you, not part of your checkbook. She’s surrounded by people who could do that, but she asked you. What if you’re the antidote to her having to deal with all the Class As trying to get into her pants because they paid for some fancy dinner?”

Class As were assholes. TJ didn’t allow Kara to swear. When either wanted to call someone a nasty name, they were Class As.

“I don’t know that I could prevent them from trying.”

“If she knew you were by her side, she wouldn’t care that they did.”

“Fake heiress in said fake situation sounds intriguing, but don’t you have some homework to finish?”

“So she’s hot.”

“Homework.”

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Because Mom

9/6/2016

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Reblogged from the Bold Strokes Books Author Blog
If you had to describe what a romance novel is about using only one word, what would you use?

Love.


Easy answer. And in the context of romance, it’s a certain kind of love: intimate, sexual, consensual, chivalrous, grand, consuming.


But who taught you to love so fiercely?


I don’t want to get into anything Freudian, but I’d argue that your mother may have had something to do with it.


Maybe it’s odd that I dedicated my second romance, For Money or Love, to my mom. But when I think of the love I’ve experienced, she stands front and center.


In my early 20s, I fell in love with a woman, which didn’t go over well with Mom. It caused significant strain between us, which I’ve blogged about: http://www.heatherblackmore.com/blog/category/love-conquers-all. And since Mom died unexpectedly, we never got a chance to completely mend together. I believe without question that we would have, especially given the parallels between her and my mother-in-law and the latter’s shift over time to acceptance and inclusion because of her unyielding love for her daughter.
​

But I’ve never once doubted that my mom loved me. She was the quintessential mama bear, defending my brother and me unreservedly, teaching us right from wrong, being there for us every single day. Her laugh was full and infectious, her temper fiery, her work ethic strong.
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[Here’s Mom celebrating a new bedside reading lamp. She was a voracious reader. Mysteries were her favorite.]

An extrovert, Mom always conversed easily with strangers, never embarrassed to ask for a recipe or offer an opinion. She was a loyal friend and had so many that the church liaison had to accommodate the number somehow when scheduling her memorial service, though I don’t remember the details.


The worst day of my life—12 years ago yet I cannot write this without tearing up—was the day we decided to halt Mom’s life support machines.


I’m not a tremendously visual person, but the last image I have of my mom—the one that’s indelibly carved into my memory and I see frequently in my mind’s eye—isn’t a happy one. I see her through a large window to a separate room where, alone, she lies on a gurney on her back under a white sheet, only her head showing. When the crematorium’s representative asked Dad and me who would make this final identification, I volunteered. To this day I’m not sure whether I regret it, but I hadn’t wanted my father to have to see Mom like that again. Part of me also wanted to say a final goodbye.


The thing is, you really can’t say goodbye to your mom. At least not one like mine.
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[Me with my Dumb and Dumber bangs looking at Mom as if she were the most amazing person on the planet. She’s doing a crossword puzzle—something she always loved—and while she was probably wishing I’d let her get back to it, she always made time for me.]

In my new romance, For Money or Love, both main characters have lost their mothers. Jessica Spaulding’s mother died when she was young, and her stepmother leaves much to be desired. TJ Blake’s mother lost her husband and subsequently her will to live, leaving behind two daughters.

And while there is so much more going on in the book than these women dealing with life without mom, it’s a subject I know all too well, one that I’d much rather have written purely from imagination.


In For Money or Love, each woman’s loss is not in the foreground of her life. But every single day, their lives are impacted by their mother’s death. Jessica sacrifices part of who she is in order to placate her stepmom; TJ sacrifices what might otherwise be carefree college years in order to rear her much younger sister, Kara. I go through days without thinking of Mom, but then sometimes I miss her so severely that I nearly break down.


Mom is forever with me. I don’t know what it is about a mother-daughter bond, but it’s strong. For me, unbreakable.


If I have any strength, I got it from my mom. If I have any courage, I got it from my mom. If I have anything to give, I am able to give it because of my mom.


​So it stands to reason that if I’m going to write about love, I’m going to do it well. And if I’m going to dedicate a novel to her, it’s going to be a damn good one. Because Mom.
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Upping my Game

9/4/2016

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Reblogged from Women and Words.

I had one overarching goal for my second romance novel: improve my craft. If I’m going to try to compete for readers’ hard-earned book budget dollars, I need to constantly work on upping my game.
​
Not that I meant it as a competition in any way vs. my debut. My first romance, Like Jazz, was an anomalous offering my Muse dropped into my lap during a week on Kauai. En route, I jotted ideas in a notebook and took my sweetheart through the plot during our initial walk on the island. I unexpectedly turned that vacation (sorry, honey!) into a writing retreat, spending my days on our lanai overlooking the majestic Pacific Ocean, typing on my laptop, my fingers acting as a conduit to a story that wouldn’t leave my head. Like a gift, the words flowed, and I wrote 8,000-9,000 words per day—every day—that week! 


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While I did end up spending the better part of a year reworking and editing that book, I knew out of the gate that my second novel wasn’t going to come to me quite so readily. Trust me when I tell you my Kauai word count is *not* how it usually works.

But just because it would be harder didn’t mean it would be better. How would I improve upon my debut? I knew I had to set the bar high. After all, I was a debut author finalist for the Goldie and Rainbow Awards, and contemporary lesbian fiction runner-up for the Rainbow Awards for Like Jazz.

Here’s how: I focused on increasing the stakes as well as adding important secondary characters and (ideally) even more humor. I put into practice the suggestions my editor, Shelley Thrasher, gave me during the editing process for my first book. None of that was easy, especially as the stakes in Like Jazz get pretty high, with the protagonist’s life in jeopardy.

Where did I end up? Well, in addition to the story’s romance, For Money or Love explores treachery, class differences, and parental loss. Bernie Madoff, of all people, inspired this key aspect of the novel:

What if you discover that the parent you love and admire has engaged in such deceit that your entire world—your career, your home, your family, your social life, your fledgling relationship—will be destroyed if you turn your parent in, and the life of the woman you’re falling for will be destroyed as well? Yet if you maintain the façade your parent has created, your lack of integrity would render your new relationship and your ability to live with yourself impossible.

I believed this was a sufficiently sticky wicket to throw at my main character, though that wasn’t all I saddled her with.

What steps did I take to develop my skills? Though I’ve been a playwright for years, I read guides on how to structure a romance storyline—beats, stakes, turning points, crisis, resolution, etc. These are things many of us know, yet are good to keep top of mind. While such guidance helped, perspective was equally important: following my gut and the advice of friends who are writers and editors in their own right. Also, though I’d read over a hundred lesbian romance novels before writing Like Jazz, I’ve read hundreds more since, homing in on my own likes and dislikes.

Once I was nearly finished, I had a final chapter that worked well as an ending but didn’t bring all the pieces together the way I wished. It took months for the right idea to take shape and stick, and I’m proud of how it turned out. I had a similar issue with Like Jazz, which was the hardest part of that book to figure out and I worked through long after Kauai.

Ultimately, Like Jazz and For Money or Love are so different that it’s not easy to know if I succeeded in my goal of improving my craft. Helping muddy the waters is a different POV: Like Jazz was written in first person whereas FMOL is in third person.

What I do know is that I’m extremely gratified by how For Money or Love turned out. I didn’t force myself into complying with a deadline that might have compromised the outcome. There was no rush, no concessions. Deadlines work really well for many authors but not for me.

You may feel overwhelmed by the number of books that strike your fancy—your heart says BUY but your wallet says NSF (which, to my sweetie, means “not so fast!”). Here’s what I suggest:

Take advantage of free excerpts available at boldstrokesbooks.com or other publishers’ websites, or download samples via Amazon. Pretend you’re in a See’s Candies store. Try before you buy, and savor each bite along the way. There’s high quality stuff out there, as well as some curious what-the-heck-is-in-that-soft-center bites. Excerpts allow us to check out someone’s style and learn about the type of story we’re in for, without risk.

Hopefully you’ll be pulled into Jess and TJ’s story as much as I was when writing it. It has all the elements I hoped to bring to it. But as to whether it works for you? Only you, dear reader, can decide.
​
To whet your appetite, below is the first scene of For Money or Love:

                                                            Chapter One

“Jessica, I want you to help get our intern acclimated to the firm.”

The Diet Coke Jess was sipping shot up through her nose, drops of it landing on her silk Chanel blouse. She should have opted for the sparkling water.

As the burning sensation ebbed, she stared at her father in disbelief, silently ticking off the reasons she must have misheard. One, this was so not her thing. She was the head of marketing, not a babysitter. Two, her father rarely asked her to perform any actual work and never held her responsible for anything. Why her, why now? Three, intern? Derrick Spaulding was worth billions—with a B. His investment advisory firm was small but highly respected, with billions of assets under management. Interns should occupy as much space in his head as sunlight.

It wasn’t possible she’d heard him correctly.

“You expect me to believe you’re interested in an intern’s first day?”

“I’m interested in her project. As you should be. She’ll be doing a case study on the firm, and if it goes the way Philip intends, it will be taught at some of this country’s best universities.”

Philip Ridge and her father had been college roommates. He was the dean of Griffin University’s business school, where the two had met as undergraduates.

“Have Gary handle it,” Jess said. Gary Treanor was the firm’s chief operating officer, her father’s right-hand man and stepson. Unlike Jess, he was a fixture at the office.

“I don’t want her to focus on the side of the business Gary handles. I want you to show her other aspects.”

“Such as?”

“How you and Brooke manage to bring in so many new clients.”

Of course. Brooke. This was Derrick-speak for her sister’s ability to sell anything to anyone, but he was being kind enough to include her. Brooke could sell sand to Saudis and portable heaters to Algerians.

“If she’s doing a case study on the business, shouldn’t she spend her time with the investment managers?”

“I want to her focus on sales and marketing, without which we’d have a sliver of the assets under management that we have.”

It was as close to a compliment as Jess had ever received from him in a business context, and she took to it like gum to a shoe. “I’ll help in any way I can. What do we know about her?”

“According to Philip, she was the impetus behind the program.” The Derrick Spaulding MBA program was a sixteen-month accelerated curriculum that included a two-year nonprofit-sector service requirement post-graduation. It was Ridge who ensured that if Derrick made a sufficiently large contribution to their alma mater, he’d work his magic to get the program named for Derrick. Jess was well associated with it because Derrick’s donations were one of the things she adored most about him and one of the reasons she worked so hard, albeit surreptitiously, on Magnate’s behalf. The higher Magnate’s profits, the more Derrick gave to various causes. Prospective investors interested in learning the character of the firm’s founder found an extensive bio on the corporate website, much of which related to Derrick’s philanthropic interests.

Jess closed her eyes and placed two fingers against each temple as if channeling an otherworldly entity. “Okay. I’m getting brainy, dull, and single-minded. Am I close?”

Derrick offered his winning smile. “Once you’re through with her? Not a chance.” He winked.

Another compliment. Apparently this internship was a bigger deal than she anticipated. “You haven’t met her?”

Her father shook his head.

“Do we know if she has more than the social grace of a hyena?”

“Except for her chronic halitosis and unseemly body hair, I imagine she’ll be fine.”

Jess loved it when her father bantered. At home—at least when her stepmother was out and she dropped by—he proved a great foil, engaging her with humor and interest. Work was another story, where he scarcely acted as though they were related. She could probably unicycle in front of him wearing a gold-lamé bodysuit that shot sparklers out of her bustier, and he wouldn’t notice. She treasured these unguarded moments, wishing desperately they could share more of them. But she’d take what she could get.

“Bring a little Listerine and some tweezers?” she asked.

“And a brush for the dandruff.”

“I’ll put it in my purse.”

“My little Girl Scout. Always prepared.”

Jess kissed her father on the cheek. “For you? Anything.”
Click here for a longer excerpt (takes you to boldstrokesbooks.com).
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