KS: Some Like it Wild has a highwayman hero — certainly a favorite amongst romance readers. What do you think is the appeal of the highwayman?
 
TM: I think almost any outlaw has his romantic appeal, whether he be pirate, highwayman or western outlaw.  First of all, he can kidnap you and carry you away without risking a restraining order. And who doesn’t want to be the woman whose steadfast love coaxes him into her arms and away from a life of crime? 
 
KS: I know you’re a Buffy fan. Have any shows filled the void since BtVS went off air?
 
TM: I adore LOST so I guess I’d have to say that Sawyer has filled the snarky, vulnerable, anti-hero hole in my heart left by Spike.  One has a British accent and one a Southern drawl, but they’re both blond and irresistible! My other favorites at the moment are probably LOST and 24. I also just discovered VERONICA MARS on DVD and will have to say it’s probably the closest to Buffy in tone and my affections. Oh, and I’m in love with almost all of the guys on STARGATE: ATLANTIS!  
 
KS: Your books always have plenty of humor in them. Do you consider yourself a funny person?
 
TM: Humor was always a defense mechanism in our family so…yes.  
 
KS: So, your mind is sent back in time and put in the body of a 14 year old you. Knowing what you know now, who will it be: Donny or David? Puppy Love or a Partridge?
 
TM: Sigh, I still love me my SOUND MAGAZINE album by the Partridge Family and think David Cassidy was actually a pretty amazing vocal talent but Donny was my first love so and has turned out to be a wonderful human being and family man so I’d still have to stick with my Donny.
 
 KS: Russell Crowe called and wants to read one of your books. Which one would you volunteer to read aloud to him?
 
TM: Definitely YOURS UNTIL DAWN! I finished the book right before seeing MASTER AND COMMANDER and that’s when I realized Russell would have made an amazing Gabriel and developed the first stages of RCO (Russell Crowe Obsession).

There was more than one Saint Valentine. According to Wikkipedia, the Catholic church recognized 11 V-Days up until 1969. The one we celebrate is in honor of Valentine of Rome, who was martyred in AD 269. Not a lot is known about him but there are 2 theories as to how he supposedly met his end. One says that he was executed after refusing to convert to Roman paganism and trying to convert Emperor Claudius II to Christianity. The second says that Claudius insisted all army men remain single, in the belief that married men did not make good soldiers (ed. — must have been that pesky reason to live and all that!). Valentine was a priest at the time and he secretly performed marriage ceremonies. For this he was arrested and subsequently put to death. Legend has it that before his execution he penned the first ‘valentine’ to his beloved, reportedly a jailor’s daughter.

Hmm, which explanation is more romantic? I think I have to go with #2.

Valentine’s Day as we know it is, unsurprisingly, widely acknowleged as a Victorian custom. Chaucer might have put the idea in our heads, but things really took off around 1847. Before this many people made their own declarations of adoration and sent them to their beloved. In the US a woman named Esther Howland, of Worcester, Mass sold the first mass produced Valentines in 1847, taking inspiration from an English valentine she herself had received.

Today it’s estimated that there are approximately one billion Valentine’s Day cards sent every year, making it second only to Christmas for card sending. Also, it’s estimated that men spend (on average) twice as much as women on the holiday. Go guys!

So, how do you feel about Valentine’s Day? A time to remember a martyred saint, or a day you can eat as much chocolate as you want and not get fat (it’s been scientifically proven!)? Do you look forward to spending time with your sweetie or do you still wonder what the cute boy in your grade 7 class meant when he gave you the Mickey and Minnie Mouse card and gave everyone else Goofy and Donald? Do you mutter, ‘Bah Humbug’ under your breath when you see the aisles of pink and red in your Walmarts, pharmacies and grocery stores? Or do you smile at the boxes of cheesy paper cut-outs and fight the urge to run home and decorate a paper bag to hang in front of your desk? Do tell! Avon Authors want to know!

Many of you have already heard me go on about how I saw Frank Langella play Dracula when I was 7. I’ve blathered incessantly about how he should have gotten the girl and how I hated the fact that he died, etc. For that reason, I’ve left him off this list. I knew you all would consider him a given. So here we go, in chronological order — my favorite vampires.

The first has to be this attractive purplish guy from the old abandoned mansion at the end of Seasame Street — The Count. So cool he has no name, just a title. He’s frostier than Fonzie, my friends. He had it all, the widow’s peak, the canines and the accent. He also had the charm and a head for numbers. What woman could resist a man who could croon such favorites as “Count Up to Nine”? He may have liked to count, but with that slicked back hair and impeccible wardrobe, we know what was really on his mind. This guy made vampires, organ music and wide collars accessible to children in a fun and non-threatening way.

Imagine my surprise when trying to find a photo of Dracula from the show Cliffhangers (1979!) and I discovered that it was the guy from Flashdance. See, I loved Michael Nouri as the iconic vampire living as a college prof in San Francisco, trying to recover his mortality and find a woman to grow old and die with, but in Flashdance — meh. Of course, I was still fairly young at this point so maybe I just didn’t get the appeal outside of the cape. Cliffhangers only ran for 10 episodes, but I used to beg my mother to let me stay up and watch the Dracula segment of the show. I remember that he had a double coffin to share with his lady love. Now that’s classy, I tell you.

There was a bit of a dry patch leading up to my teen years. George Hamilton’s Love at First Bite came out the same year as Cliffhangers, but I was too young to see it in theaters. I had to wait for video. I’m almost terrified to admit that I think I might have watched it in Beta format!! Anyway, the humorous vampire didn’t quite cut it for me in those days. But the mid to late 80s made up for that in a big way. In 1985 a little comic-horror movie called Fright Night was released. It was at this point in my vampire-appreciation that I realized I’m not a big fan of the face-changing vampire. I’ve always thought the scariest monsters were the ones that looked just like us. And I’ve never really got why a vamp’s face had to change anyway. Regardless, I was 14 and Fright Night introduced me to the concept of vampire sexuality. I still maintain that Christopher Sarandon in the Night Club scene is one of the most sexual vampires ever. And he does it in a turtleneck sweater. No cape and tux for this blood-sucker!

Fright Night was followed by Near Dark. Before he could fly on Heroes, Adrian Pasdar played a very cute farm boy named Caleb who fell into the hands of a vicious group of vampires all because of a girl. Bill Paxton was notably fabulous as a vampire. And Adrian was so fresh scrubbed and morally upright he couldn’t bring himself to feed. Ohh, a tormented vampire! Here was something even more appealing than the sexy and villainous vamp. My interest grew.

But quite probably, the most influential vampire flick of my teen-age years was Lost Boys. I even got the literary reference! I was sixteen and very much into hair bands, and then I was handed this glossy, gorgeous movie filled with pretty boys and girls, all of whom had amazing hair and acted around a fabulous soundtrack. I loved it so much I didn’t care that the ‘Coreys’ were in it. Jason Patrick was huge at the time, as was my home boy Keifer Sutherland. But it was one of the vampires in the background who caught my eye. Billy Wirth had the best hair hands down, and he was the quintessential sexy vampire in my 16 year-old mind. For those of you who don’t recognize Billy but saw the movie, he was the ‘death by stereo’ vampire. I’ve never forgiven Corey Haim for that moment. (As an aside, this also ties in with my Gilmore Girls post, as Edward Herrmann, who played Lorelei’s father in the show, also played ‘father’ to the Lost Boys, trying to bring Michael into the fold so his mother would have to follow.)

I’m sure there were other vampires throughout the 90’s, but the winner in my books has to be Angel. He was tortured to the point of needing a slap. A real reluctant vamp, my favorite moments were when he was forced into action, or when ‘Angelus’ came out and he did something really campy and nasty. Some of my favorite moments:

1. when Angel is possessed by a female ghost during the Sadie Hawkins dance on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Buffy takes on the ghost of the male counterpart.

2. When Angel comes back from Hell (having been sent there by Buffy) and he’s all feral.

3. When he mentions having a ‘thing’ for nuns and convents on Angel and we later find out nuns were his equivilant to a Happy Meal.

4. Puppet Angel.

Angel was pretty close to the perfect vampire — big, sexy and scary. But he also could be very funny when he had to be, and the character had a wonderful old world naivete at times. I loved the line he said at a restaurant with his cohorts, “I’m not cheap, I’m just old!”

Since Buffy and Angel both went off air, I haven’t found much in the way of vampire love. I had high hopes for Moonlight, as Mick St. John was one of the more interesting vamps I’d seen in a long time. Still fairly young he retained much of his humanity — a trait that was sometimes as maddening as it was heartbreaking. This show had a lot of promise, particularly because it didn’t fall back on drama as conflict. In the final episode, instead of walking away from his lady love as he was being pushed to do, Mick turned around and came back. I loved that, and I really wish the network had given us a chance to see what came next.

Thankfully HBO has brought the Sookie Stackhouse books to the small screen. And while Erik is very big and alpha, it’s Stephen Moyer as Bill who had my attention through Season 1 of True Blood. Bill has just the right amount of tortured sensitivity and humanity left inside to make lovely conflict with the part of him that is unapologetic monster. I’m sure some of this love is because I’ve always been a sucker for dark hair, blue eyes and an impressive set of side-burns and I don’t care. True Blood has given me the vampire fix I’ve been waiting for and I can’t wait to sink my teeth (pun so very much intended) into Season 2!

So, if you’ve stuck around for the entirety of this post, you must have a liking for vampires too. Feel free to share your thoughts on the vampires I’ve listed, or better yet share some of your favorites!

I discovered Gilmore Girls by accident. While working on a book in which the heroine has a very close relationship to her mother, and a Korean best friend, a friend said to me, “Hey, you must have been a fan of the Gilmore Girls.” I replied that no, I hadn’t been. And then said friend told me just enough about the show (including the fact that she hadn’t been crazy about it and why) to whet my interest. I found the first season for a steal and started watching.

Friends, I am not ashamed to tell you that I fell in love. Oh sure, Lorelei sometimes makes me want to smack her, and Rory is too perfect to ever survive in the real world, but I love the quirky small town. I love the writing and the characters and the rhythm of the show.

And I’m only on season 2! There are 5 more to go!! Season 3 sits impatiently in its plastic wrap on my ‘to be watched’ pile and season 4 is already in my shopping cart. I want to know what happens to these characters and yet I don’t. See, I want Lorelei to finally get together with Luke — don’t tell me! — And I don’t want Rory and Dean to break up (but I know they must because I watch Supernatural and Jared Padalecki started on that show before GG’s went off the air). Can I tell you how glad I was when Chad Michael Murray’s character got shipped off to military school? I even waved good-bye at the screen as he made his exit, the little trouble maker.

Okay, so what’s the appeal? Aside from the fact that I don’t have to wait a week between episodes? My laundry has gone undone. Emails have gone unanswered (not for long, though), just so because I have Just-One-More-Episode-And-That’s-It-itis where Gilmore Girls are concerned. Those of you who watched the show, tell me why I’m so addicted. Is it the family interactions? Is it Luke’s scruffy jaw? Why do I feel so acutely for both Lorelei and her mother every time they rub each other raw?

And while you’re at it, why not tell me about shows you’ve recently discovered that other people raved about long before you jumped on the bandwagon. I’ve also discovered Kyle XY, but that’s a show for another day…