Quotes from Sarah MacLean

Colleen McCullough taught me that desire is the heart of romance.

'A Rogue by Any Other Name' is the first book in the 'Rules of Scoundrels' series, centered on a legendary pre-Victorian casino and her four scandalous aristocratic owners.

Of all the myriad ways we define love, there is perhaps none more honest and powerful than this: Great love is rooted in great partnership.

I want to wake up one morning and know how to write page one, or page 10, or page 250. But I never seem to know how to do it. Every book is different and takes a different structure, style, process, etc. And relearning how to write is where the insanity comes from.

Alas, summer sun can't last forever. The days will grow cooler and shorter, and our skin will once again pale.

In books by women and for women, it should come as no surprise that heroines are the heroes of the action, finding themselves, their power and their future through love.

In seven books, I've written my fair share of baby epilogues. Pregnancies and births and even grandchildren have made an appearance in the final pages of my books.

If you think back to your time as a teenager, everything was dramatic.

Romance readers love a wealthy hero, and why not? There's value in a man able to hire a helicopter, a coach and six horses, or a collection of werewolves to do his bidding - and the bidding of the lucky woman on his arm.

Perhaps summer's ephemeral nature is what inspires us to embrace the beach read. We tell ourselves that these twisted plots and wild characters are literary ice cream sundaes - extravagant treats that aren't as calorie-laden when we're wearing flip flops.

I never met Colleen McCullough; if I had, I probably would have cried and made a fool of myself.

I think we can all agree that Colin Firth falls into the George Clooney category of 'Men Who Age Like Fine Wine.'

Gone are the days when heroes are emotionally locked away from the world until the end of the book, and thank goodness for that. Modern romance heroes are more complex than ever.

The best romance writers know there's nothing that builds conflict or makes a gentleman of a rogue more quickly than responsibility.

As winter approaches - bringing cold weather and family drama - we crave page-turners, books made for long nights and tryptophan-induced sloth.

By the time I was 10 or 12, I had discovered the lure of the romance genre - and the dusty copy of 'The Thorn Birds' on my parents' bookshelf.

There is a whole generation of romance readers and writers who suffer from what I like to think of as 'Thorn Birds' Fever.

My whole life . . . two and two has made four."... "But now . . . it's all gone wrong." She shook her head. "It doesn't make four anymore. It makes you.

Un momento con una donna capricciosa vale undici anni di vita noiosa. A single moment with a fiery female is worth eleven years of a boring life.

When I feel hurt, I fully experience my emotions (and don't make them anyone else's problem!). Then I question my thoughts, examining my belief system and meeting the reality of life.

One of the most common criticisms of romance is that the genre is too prescribed: If every romance novel ends happily ever after, don't the stories lack complexity? Don't the readers get bored?

In real life, I'd say that your commitment-phobe/narcissist/bad boy boyfriend is a lost cause, but romance is shelved in fiction for a reason.

That first meeting - the one where the hero and heroine start the slow burn that takes the whole story to turn into true love - is the single most important part of the whole book. Nail it, and you've won yourself readers.

When it comes to love, the English language bears no shortage of cliches.