The Great Pretender

The Great Pretender

Best-selling novel The Scoundrel is being turned into a TV series and lead actor Liam Moore identifies quite a lot with his on-screen alter ego. Could this be because both novel and TV scripts were written by Belle Cooper, a girl he loves to hate... or might hate to love?

Years ago, Belle and Liam spent one crazy, wonderful week together. What really happened during that week may be one of Hollywood's best kept secrets but it ended badly. Now they have to be around each other and pretend nothing happened. Could this be their second chance? or is it Karma just being a bitch?


Facts & Fun
* The over-all story was inspired by the song The Great Pretender by The Platters - there are covers, the most famous one by Queen.

* There is also a bunch of song s I kept playing when I was working on this story. They are:
+ The Great Pretender by The Platters (obviously)
+ Always by Bon Jovi (greatest power ballad ever, in my opinion)
+ Mercy and Stepping Stone by Duffy
+ Todo y Nada by Luis Miguel
+ It's about time by Lillix

* Actually, a lot couple of the chapter's titles are from the lyrics of the song.

* There was a back story that Belle and Ari's mom claimed to be able to predict the names of future Disney princesses - hence their names - but I never found a good spot to write that in

* I loved writing all the epigraphs for the story, they were so much fun. I loved writing the gossip columns (they are a guilty pleasure).

* The excerpts/manuscript pages from the Adam Bryne books (The Scoundrel, Empire and Always) were written by me as it fit the story. Some people have asked me if I'm going to write those books sometime and the truth is that I don't think so, I don't know why.

*In case it wasn't clear in the story, Liam's mom is alive. His father died when he was in his late teens. I also had this bunch of back story about the only woman his father had ever loved, but, again, I couldn't find a spot to tell it all.

* Sir Cookie, Ari's dog is a mix called Beaglerier or something like that, mix of Beagle and King Charles Cavalier and it looks like this:

In the story, Ari mentions puppy-mills, I hadn't really known about them, but when I was writing the story, I was also reading a book where they were mentioned. I looked it up and I was both sad and horrified to learn what they were. And since Ari had always been a animal-rights defender in my head, I decided to mention it.

* I based Ari and Belle's looks in Mandy Moore and Amy Davidson (She played the younger daughter on 8 Simple Rules, I looked her and she's roughly the same age Belle is), respectively. Particularly in the photos bellow.

* Ari's dress is a Monique Lhuillier strapless dress, in ivory with a drop waist and a draped tulle overlaid with a lace border.

* I had thought of maybe this dress for Belle, I think it's a Caroline Herrera gown.

*Been thinking of doing a story with Gwen Lambert, Belle's editor and with someone linked to another series!

So, that's if for now! :D

When We Meet Again

The Story

When We Meet Again

One day made all the difference in Jack and Val's life. Had they met one day earlier they would have been free to love each other and live happy ever after. But they met one day too late.


Facts and Fun
* When We Meet Again is a bit of a departure for me because it is a bit different than what I usually write. It's lightly based on a short story I read when I was nine years old, it was the first romantic story I ever consciously read and it made me fall in love with the genre. It was a milestone for me.

* In When We Meet Again, I took the liberty of running with one of my favorite cliches ever: The Secret Baby Plot. I LOVE IT! and this is actually the only time I've worked with it.

* I think the star of this story is definitely Lynnie, Jack and Val's daughter. But she was so hard to write, I wanted to make her believable and adorable without making her precocious. I hate precociousness in children, and I hate when they sound annoyingly adult. I love Lynnie for who she is and the person she one day will be.

* Lynnie's full name is Jacklyn Audrey, Jacklyn is because of her dad's name, and Audrey is actually Nana's name.

* The whole concept for Valentine Bears was born after I went to Build-A-Bear, I love that store.

* The story is set in the Annapolis area, and that's TOLauren's fault, she's familiar with the area and helped me with a few details.

* Fudge the puppy is molded a little after my own dog Rocco, who's half Labrador and half German Shepard.

* Though in the story Max dies, he actually went to live a long life inside my friend Kris' closet. Don't feel to bad for him...

It Had to Be You

The Story

It Had To Be You

Falling in love with Gabriel Ravenscroft, her best friend's brother!, was never among Ellie Mathews' plans... but then neither was running away from an arranged marriage, disguising herself as a boy and ending up at Gabriel's semi-pirate ship, but it all happened. And that was just the beginning.


Companion Story

Meant To Be - An It Had To Be You holiday story. Take a glimpse at Ellie and Gabriel's lives a few years after the end of their story.

Facts and Fun

* This story is very, very special to me since it was the first story when I said "All right I'm going to take these cliches I love, jam them into a story and run with it!" and it worked, it was so much fun and there was so much freedom, playing with these cliches took the pressure off and it was a delight to write the story.

* Among the cliches used were:

• Pirates/privateers
• Girl disguising as a boy
• Girl on the run from arranged marriage
• Falling in love with best friend's sibling/ falling in love with sibling's best friend.

* I think Gabriel is one of my oldest heroes ever, he's around thirty. He's also one of the hottest guys I've written even if I say so myself. He's a bit of a pirate so I guess that does adds to the over all thing.

* It Had To Be You won the Best Lust Scenes award at a site.

* I have to handle it to my friends Adel and Courtney/Bratsie, because a) Adel listened to me rambling on and on about this story at, like, three int he morning just so I could get it all out. and b) Bratsie heard me out to, and she was actually the one who picked Gabriel's name (See next point).

* I had two names in mind for Gabriel (everyone voted for Gabriel) and the other one was Lucian.

* Kris, the Parody Queen I've mention before, wrote some of the funniest stuff ever to parody this story, including a cross-over between It Had To Be You and Witch in Training. I'll see if it's okay my putting some of that in here.

* I usually base my heroes in my crush at the moment, so Gabriel looks kind of like Eric Bana. Ellie, on the other hand, looks like Rachel Hurd-Wood (she's in Peter Pan), when I saw her in The Perfume I said 'That's Ellie!'

Only You

The Story

Only You

To end a war, Darla married Jacen. Their kingdoms have been fighting each other for generations. He's a proud king and she never wanted to be a princes - let alone a queen - to begin with. Can they look beyond their differences and find love together?

Facts and Fun

* Only You was the first story I wrote in English, ever! So for that reason it will always be special to me.

* Darla is the illegitimate daughter of the king of her country, product of an affair between the King and his second in command's wife, Lady June. Darla doesn't really acknowledges the king as her father or Lady June as her mother. When she talks about her mother and father she always refers to Lord Stone and Lady Julie. She only becomes princess of the Wolf Lands when her half-brother, the legitimate heir, dies and the King has no option but to acknowledge her as his.

* Darla, before becoming a princess, was in the military and made it to the right of Commander, which roughly would equal a general.

* Jacen's name comes to him from Jacen Solo, eldest son of Han and Leia from Star Wars, I kind of love him, even though he ended up falling to the dark side in the end (Jacen Solo, I mean).

* The people from Jacen's country -known as Bears - are uncommonly strong and have high stamina. Darla's people - known as wolves - have good hearing and are very pack-ish.

* When I first wrote the story, I went beyond the current ending, adding two chapters at the end and hinted at a story between Bryanna (Jacen and Darla's daughter) and Gregory (Hector's son). In the end I took off those two chapters because I didn't think they were necessary, but they are still up at Fanfiction. Net, where I still hold the original story.

* What I love the most about this story is how Darla and Jacen fall in love, they were married already and had to work out at making that work.

* Jacen's brother, Jared, looks like Jared Padalecki from the Gilmore Girl's era. I used to like him before Supernatural when I saw Jensen Ackles, and well, Padalecki was out.

Don't Say You Love Me

The Story

Don't Say You Love Me

With a mother that has been married eight times and a lovesick best friend, Sam Wilcox thinks she knows everything there is to know about love, not that she has ever dare to feel it- For her love is all about the pain it brings. But then, there is Zane Wagner, who will do anything to prove her wrong... by falling in love with her.



Facts and Fun

* Don't Say You Love is is called that way because of an M2M song, which actually plays a little during one of the final chapters.

* This was one of the first stories I ever wrote, and it was definitely the first contemporary one. Because of that it will always be special to me.

* Zane is pretty much my dream guy, he's also named after Zane Cobriana from Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' Kiesha'ra series. They don't have anything in common but I liked the name, it means 'beloved' I think.

* Sam and Ella have a lot of bits and pieces from my best friend Vi and myself.

* All the chapters start with a quote about love, some are songs, some are just sayings but I believe in all of them.

* I recently went over the story and edited some stuff, and I added a little bit to the original ending, I think it turned out better.

* The Jerk who dumps Ella at the beginning of the story, Victor, was named after my own Prep School crush, he wasn't that much of a jerk - at least to me - but I guess part of me just wanted some liberation from the crush.

* There are two things that happened to Sam that also happened to me.

• One : I once had to have a cast in my hand - got hurt playing basketball - and the ladies at the hospital did put the cast in "The Finger" position.
• Two: I once was a cheerleader, when I was, like, in the seventh grade, mostly because they didn't know what to do with us during P.E. at school. It didn't stick.