Hope By Any Other Name

Our blog theme this month is hope, and my fellow Genre-istas have already posted a lot of great thoughts and insights on this topic.

For me, hope is among the defining qualities of life. In fact, the meaning of my name – Nadine, derived from the Russian Nadezhda – means hope, and there couldn't be a better way to explain my way of looking at life. But when I think about my personal definition of hope, it goes beyond simply wishing for a certain outcome. The best description I can think of is confidence/trust.

Whenever I hope for something, I find I have this basic, unshakable trust that, in the end, everything will somehow work out. That there will always be better times around the corner, and that, even if things didn't turn out as I wished them to, something good will still come of it all. No matter how hard life knocks me down, after granting myself a brief moment of wallowing in misery, I always bounce back up, filled with this trusting hope that things will get better.

It is this faith that is at the foundation of all romance novels, too. Fellow Genre-ista Kris Tualla made a case earlier this month that romance authors are the champions of hope, and I couldn't agree more. I guess this is what drew me to the genre and keeps me picking up new romances time after time. Especially in moments when my own hope/confidence/trust may be bruised by life for a short while.

I am proud to write books that are based on hope, to give readers out there a shot of confidence/trust with the stories I tell. My upcoming novel, Blood, Pain, and Pleasure (available May 28), has the heroine Merle searching for her abducted sister against staggering odds. Through it all, she never loses hope/confidence/trust that, in the end, she will succeed and save her sister's life. While falling in love with the demon helping her find her sister, she also carries hope for the impossible – that she can keep the man she loves, even if everything points to the opposite.

When seduction weaves a spell more powerful than magic...

Desperate to save her demon-abducted sister, witch Merle MacKenna breaks the law of her Elders. As a last resort to track down the kidnapper, she unleashes another demon, Rhun, from the magical prison of the Shadows. Determined to bind him again after he helps her, Merle vows to keep him tightly controlled. Easier said than done when her own personal demon is hellbent on charming his way into her pants – and her heart.

After twenty years in the Shadows, bound for a crime he didn’t commit, Rhun is past caring about anyone but himself. The plan: Seduce the sexy witch, steal her powers, break the magical leash to her, and then be on his merry way. But when a heinous betrayal in the ranks of the witches forces Merle and Rhun to work even closer together, Rhun’s plan backfires – and the witch he meant to play gets under his skin. With his unbidden feelings for Merle vying with his need for freedom, he struggles with a bitter realization: Being a selfish bastard is a lot harder when love is involved.

Stop by my website for more information on Blood, Pain, and Pleasure, pre-order and newsletter signup.