Patricia Sargeant in the lair

hosted by Donna MacMeans

It's my pleasure to introduce you to one of the sweetest, kindest people I've ever met. I swear, if you look in the dictionary under "sweet"...Patricia's picture will be there. But please understand, this lady writes hot suspense. Her tagline "Romances to die for"

is a little too true. It's always the quiet ones, isn't it? Please welcome Patricia Sargeant.

Donna, thank you so much for inviting me to meet your Romance Bandits friends. I’m thrilled and honored to be here.

Donna and I met when I joined our local Romance Writers of America chapter, Central Ohio Fiction Writers, in 1999. She was chapter president at the time, and did me the great favor of providing feedback on the first romance novel I completed.

The novel went on the shelf, and I started a new one.

However, since then, both novels – You Belong to Me and On Fire – have been published, with no small thanks to Donna for her excellent input.

This month, I’m celebrating the release of my third single-title, Sweet Deception, and a benefits romance anthology, Tails of Love, for which Donna and I contributed short stories. Both hit the shelves June 2.

As I mentioned, Tails of Love is a benefits anthology. It features original short stories by Lori Foster
Stella Cameron, Dianne Castell, Kate Angell, Ann Christopher, Marcia James, Sarah McCarty, Sue-Ellen Welfonder, Donna and me. My short story, “Scaredy Cat,” features a heroine whose adopted stray cat plays matchmaker. I had a lot of fun with that story. I’ve tried to tell the story in part from the cat’s perspective.

Tails of Love will raise money for the Animal Adoption Foundation, a no-kill animal shelter in Ohio, as well as increase awareness of the needs of abused and abandoned animals and pets. Have you bought your copy yet? If not, I’ll wait here while you pop out to get one. Or two.

Sweet Deception is my first contemporary romance. You Belong to Me and On Fire are romantic suspense. It took me a little while to plot a story without dead bodies. But in the writing, I realized what really drives my stories are the themes. In You Belong to Me, the theme is family. On Fire’s theme is trust. Sweet Deception’s theme is identity.

The heroine is a dutiful minister’s daughter who leads a secret life as an erotic romance author. When she begins a relationship with another more famous author, her secret identity is revealed, and she's forced to choose between duty (the person her family wants her to be) and desire (the person she wants to be).

I think this is a theme to which most of us can relate. As women, we wear so many hats – wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, career professional – we sometimes lose track of who we are individually. Who is Donna MacMeans? Who is Patricia Sargeant? Who are you? Sometimes we allow other people to define us rather than taking the time to define ourselves.

Tell me, what is it about you or your interests that most surprise people? Define yourself. But let’s try to keep this PG rated.

I’ll start us off. People are most surprised when they learn I enjoy football, both college and pro. They’re also surprised when they learn I’m a runner. Now, I haven’t been getting many miles in, and watching me run may not be the prettiest sight, but I do enjoy it.

OK. Who’s up next?

One commenter will win a copy of The Power of Love. Twelve award-winning authors contributed original short stories for The Power of Love, a benefits romance anthology. All of the authors and their agents donated all of their proceeds to the Hamilton County YWCA Battered Women's Shelter. In addition to raising money for this battered women's shelter, the anthology helped raise awareness of the problem of domestic violence.

Donna, thank you again for having me over.

My pleasure. You can find more about Patricia at www.patriciasargeant.com