Footwear

I don't know about you, but I can tell a lot about a person by their choice of footwear. I'm currently working on a novel that takes place during the Revolutionary War in America. My heroine is a former courtesan from London, and during her time there, she was given gifts from her paramours in the form of fancy footwear, among other things. So she came to America with a truckload full of fine shoes. It's turning out to be a theme in the book.

I recently got back the rights to my contemporary, Blame It On The Brontes. I argued for years with the publisher to put three pairs of shoes on the cover that depicted the personalities of the three women who tell the story, but I could never convince them of my vision. Now that I had the rights back, I could create my own cover exactly the way I wanted it. There's the hippie, the practical one, and the starlet. And my guess is you can tell exactly whose shoes belong to whom on the cover.

As I write this from my Carolina room in sweltering North Carolina, I am barefooted. For someone who writes about women with shoe fetishes, I am coming up woefully short myself. But it's summer in the south, so bare feet are acceptable.

So, grab your flip flops and head to the beach or the pool with the Bronte book. It's a great beach read. Happy Independence Day, everyone!