A Sexy Greek for the Summer

My Sexy Greek Summer comes out this week! I had wanted to write Cara Sokol's story ever since my second book, Her Book of Pleasure. The hero for that book, Rick Sokol, temporarily needed a super-fancy condo overlooking Lake Michigan and I made up a sister for him who owned that condo. But how could she afford a condo like that?

Ah, that's the rub (and the backstory). Cara's mysterious past leads to a reluctant return to Greece to visit her ailing (and scheming) friend Athena. Once Cara sets foot on the sensual isle of Aphrodisias, she meets a sexy Greek man named Yannis who shows her the delights that can be had on the beach, in the olive orchard, in a mystical lagoon...

I had so much fun fixing up Cara. Sometimes I feel like I am a therapist for my characters--I get to fix their problems, they do what they're told (most of the time), and they don't whine at me like that friend everyone has that asks for your well-thought out advice and then proceeds to give you seventy-three reasons why none of it will ever work and how they're doomed to continue in misery.

As you may have guessed from the fact that this is a romance, Cara does get her happy ending. After all, we writers are like the Greek goddesses of old--we get to meddle in characters' lives and fix them with a wave of the hand.

P.S. Aphrodisias is fictional but based on several islands in the Cyclades. These are what we think of as the quintessential Greek islands--Santorini, Paros, Delos, Mikonos and many others. Delos was thought of as the birthplace of Apollo and was holy ground. Cyclades is Greek for "encircling" and Delos is in the middle of the circle--as if all the other islands spun out from the sacred center.