Tag: Manhattan

The One Who Got Away

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The One Who Got Away…We all have one, which is to say a “The One.” You know what or rather who I mean. The O-N-E. Maybe he was your first love or your first big love. Maybe he was both. Maybe you broke up with him–but I’m betting my next book advance he broke up with you. Maybe you never really had him in the first place…but again, I’m betting you did. At least long enough for a part of him to sink into your psyche and your soul. Like that tattoo you rethink years later, you can obliterate the image but not the experience. That shiny white scar is yours–for keeps.

Only by definition The One Who Got Away isn’t a keeper, or at least he hasn’t been so far. And yet who among us hasn’t been moved by those real-life stories of high school sweethearts who find each other on ClassMates.com or reunion night after years, decades apart and fall in love all over again, even marry, in mid- and sometimes late life?

In Every Breath You Take, my January Harlequin Blaze release, former FBI Special Agent Cole Whittaker and microbiologist Alexandra–Alex–Kendall meet again after five painful years apart. Like so many real life reunions, theirs is completely unexpected, the circumstances far from ideal. Alex is about to marry another man, the same man who’s hired Cole as a bodyguard to escort her on her upcoming overseas business trip. Crazy in love with her, Cole still can’t envision his life having room in it for more than The Job. And yet they have a chance, a slim one, to get it right this time: four days of 24/7, up close-and-personal togetherness in steamy Belize.

I hope you enjoy my newly posted sneak peek excerpt — it’s only going to be on my site for a blink of time, to be replaced by a more permanent excerpt in a bit, so don’t let it get away. When you get two ticks, please post a little note to let me know what you think. Or feel free to share a snippet of your One Who Got Away story, especially if he didn’t stay away forever. Happily Ever Afters, we like those around here. 🙂

Hope

Head Over Heels

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Okay, I have officially become one of those people. You know, Those People. The People who a mere week ago I felt completely justified, even compelled, to make fun of. The People so besotted with their Blackberry AKA Crackberry devices they can’t take their eyes or hands off them for a minute. No matter how public the place or how scintillating the social scene, their gazes are fixed on that tiny backlit screen, their nimble fingers tap, tap tapping away at the miniscule keyboard. These are the people who suddenly draw to dead stops on busy sidewalks–and hey, it’s Manhattan, so it’s not like there are lots of un-busy sidewalks–Subway stairs, and yes, sometimes even crosswalks.

Okay, so maybe I haven’t done the zombie stuck in crosswalk thing, but it’s only been a week.

I got my Blackberry–The Curve, she’s called–exactly one week ago, last Friday. Chalk it up to the whole Mercury about to go into retrograde thing or just damned bad luck, but getting her programmed and primed to come home with me wasn’t exactly a cyberspace cakewalk.

Stepping into the Verizon store I realized I’d left my glasses at home. That’s bad. For those of you who are shrugging like that’s no big deal, I’ll just say this: Girlfriend isn’t a kid anymore. As we get ahem…older, size matters in ways you’d never really thought about size mattering before. Reference the words “tiny” and “miniscule” above. Ditto for “glare” and “light.”

After the glasses panic, the episode turned into one big downward spiral. I didn’t get the woman retailer I like, the one who speaks in soft, lilting Indian-accented English, the one who explains technology “stuff” so calmly and so well that I always leave the store humming “I am woman, hear me roar.” Instead I got one of her relatives, the smug, unpleasant man with the bad comb-over and the brusque manner. For all his posturing, he didn’t really understand how the device worked. Unfortunately for me, he didn’t much care if I understood how it worked, either. We had to call Verizon technical support–a lot.

The store is in Manhattan’s East Village, on the ambulance route to Beth-Israel. Fridays are busy ambulance days. I’m not sure why. They just are. Being on the Verizon hot line with sirens blaring and the store’s disco music going at full throttle was…well, a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I like Donna Summer as much as the next child of the 80’s, but when your head is splitting, you’ve left your glasses at home, and your not-yet-purchased Crackberry is down to two bars and the seller is refusing to spot you a charger, five back-to-back choruses of “Hot Stuff” is quite enough.

Another thing that tends to happen more on Fridays than any other day of the week is people freak out. It’s as though whatever’s been bugging them all week builds and builds so that by the time Friday rolls around, instead of hi-fiving each other and doing a TGIF version of Snoopy’s happy dance they detonate.

Case in point: a young man whose cellphone had stopped working came into the store. It turned out he just needed a charger. Unfortunately he only had $10. To get rid of him, the retailer (the reasonable woman, not the bad comb-over dude) agreed he could just pay the $10. The “reduced price” charger with tax came to $10.60. But remember, he only had $10–period. She told him he could pay just the $10 but bad comb-over guy wasn’t having that. The kid, who’d begun to sweat and speak at a high volume (AKA scream), went outside and panhandled the 60 cents in record time. Looking on with my one ear plastered to the store phone funneling precious tech support instruction and the rest of me prepping to hit the ground if need be, I was impressed. He returned with the change, only by now bad comb over guy suddenly decided he could keep it. An even ten dollars would do.

Only this young man had gone to some effort to get that 60 cents. He didn’t feel like he was being treated respectfully. He wanted to be appreciated.

“People are rude sometimes,” he howled into my free ear, part fury and part lament. “People really should be nicer.”

Yes, they should. Fortunately there is a Happy Ending to report. The kid slammed the 60 cents down on the desk and left without brandishing a weapon (bonus!). The technical support guy and I struck up sufficient sympatico to get the basic set-up on my Blackberry programmed. (Did I mention he had a very sexy voice)? The bad comb-over guy shoved my “free gift,” some crap carrying case, at me along with my receipt and rebate instructions and wished me a nice weekend in the tone usually associated with “Go to hell.” I got back to my apartment, my Blackberry fully functioning (albeit down to one bar) and my body fully intact, and poured myself a glass of wine.

Curvy and I’ve had quite a week together. I’ve taken her all over the city, checking and sending email in places I never would have dreamt of checking and sending email before. Last night we went to The Modern, the sleek, white-marble topped bar/lounge at the Modern Museum of Art or MOMA. While I waited for my buddy Liz to join me, I sipped my glass of chardonnay and yes, tapped away at Curvy’s cute little raised button keys, sifting through emails, panning through photo attachments, sending reports on my “status” to Facebook. Ah, the techno-life! I’m not sure whether I’m taking Her out tonight or if we’ll be spending a quiet evening at home instead. Aside from cats on Fancy Feast patrol, there’s no traffic to speak of in my apartment, so staying home is probably safer. Either way, my Blackberry won’t be out of my sight.

TGIF,

Hope

Keeping it Real

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Elizabeth Kerri Mahon, Liz Maverick and Hope celebrate Liz's birthday in style.
Elizabeth Kerri Mahon, Liz Maverick and Hope celebrate Liz's birthday in style.

I recently met a female writer buddy for Indian food in the West Village.  Over a leisurely dinner of vegetable samosas, curried shrimp, and palak peneer, we chatted about a host of topics–our current writing projects (a given), restaurants, a lecture she’d  attended that day addressing psychoanalytic perspectives on attraction and mating, an award she’d just received for her excellent blog on women in history, and the upcoming national presidential election,  including yes, The Palin Factor.  After exhausting these topics, we took the conversation down a notch–okay, several notches–to yes, men and dating.

Elizabeth and Hope exchange serious looks.
Elizabeth and Hope exchange serious looks.

No matter how balding, paunchy and yes, middle-aged a man may be, no matter that his job may suck or that he may not have a job at all, he still operates on the principle that he has a God given right to date twenty-somethings and models.   

It seems that while my friend and I write fiction, a disturbing number of single men are living it.

Case in point, my friend recently attempted to fix up her attractive, got-it-going-on male co-worker with her attractive got-it-going-on female writer friend.  The man, who works in the finance industry, was so open to the fix-up that on his lunch break he pulled out his Blackberry and went to said writer’s web site.  Sufficiently intrigued, he went on to read her bio, which briefly mentions her graduate degree.  Finishing, he turned back to my friend, smile dropping, and said, “Sorry, but she’s too smart.”

Okay, so once a woman is over thirty-five, dumb is what, the new sexy? 

Pu-lease. 

On the extremely off-chance any single men are perusing this post, listen up, guys.  Whether you’re in your 30’s, 40’s, 50’s or older, the time has come to get real about this dating-slash-life stuff.  You are not going to end up with a model or an A-list actress.  You are not even going to start out with one.  Even if Brad Pitt was to be taken completely out of the picture, even if you were to step in and be Angelina Jolie’s shoulder-to-cry-on, her rock, she is still not going to have you.  Ditto for supermodel Heidi Klume and A-list actress, Jennifer Aniston.  Your chance of scoring with these babes is not only remote.  It is nonexistent.

These women are simply not going to have you, so get over it.

I realize that for many of you this comes as a shock, one that you will need some time, anywhere from the next few minutes to the rest of your lives to absorb.  The good news is that there are actual, real life women who maybe just maybe might be persuaded to have you or at least to take you for a test drive–think Zip Car versus the longer-term commitment of say, Hertz.  Generally speaking we’re Manhattan single women 35 and older, and as a cohort we’re well-heeled, well kept, well read, and well employed.  We’re smart.  And sexy.  Like Forest Gump’s peas and carrots, like peanut butter and chocolate in a Reese’s cup, smart and sexy aren’t mutually exclusive.  They can go together.  In real life, they usually do.  Still have doubts?  Then check out these photos of my buddy, Liz Maverick’s birthday bash at Shalel last Saturday.

Dorchester author, Leanna Hieber takes Liz's Steampunk goggles for a test run.

Real life isn’t so bad, now is it?

Hope

Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?

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When romance author buddy and fellow Manhattan singleton, Liz Maverick called me up last week and said, “This new absinthe bar just opened up in the Lower East Side. Wanna go?” there was really only one answer that sprang to mind.

YES!!!

Maybe Liz’s um…maverick spirit is just contagious or maybe it was my own residual curiosity from high school Art Appreciation Class–Degas’ painting, “The Glass of Absinthe” is well, pretty haunting–but either way I was totally game to go.

On Saturday night I met Liz and our mutual friend, Bonni at White Star on Essex Street. White Star isn’t a terribly big place, but it packs a pretty powerful presence, sort of Prohibition era speak easy meets uber cool Manhattan “secret bar.” Proprietor and yes, mixologist, Sasha Petraske patiently briefed the three of us on the history of absinthe before settling in to make our drinks.

Up until Saturday night, I was an absinthe virgin. I remember absinthe being illegal in the US “back in the day” but beyond vague allusions to blindness and brain function loss, I really didn’t know much about it. The official Webster definition of absinthe is “a green liquor flavored with wormwood or a substitute, anise, and other aromatics.”

After Saturday night, I strongly recommend Webster and Company update their definition. As it turns out, there are various types of absinthe. White Star serves the traditional green “Parisian” variety as well as a slightly less fortified clear type.

The flavor didn’t shoot me over the moon but it wasn’t bad, either, quite pleasant in point. To me, absinthe tastes like licorice only without the syrupy consisteny of sambucca. But what I really dug was the whole ritual of preparation and presentation, complete with 1930’s-esque bar gatchetry. That Sasha kind of looks like Brendan Frasier in the Mummy movies didn’t hurt, either. But I digress…

Preparing absinthe is fairly labor intensive. You do it by the glass and there is absolutely no rushing the process. Basically, about three-fingers’ worth of the actual liquor is poured into a glass. Ice water is then drizzled over a single sugar cube set atop a strainer, slowly infusing the absinthe with an almost fairylike foaminess.

I didn’t experience any Green Fairy sightings, I’m happy to say, though the absinthe I drank was the clear variety and I only sampled one before switching to a tried-and-true clear alcoholic beverage–champagne. Still, White Star stands out as the highlight of the evening.

But like intrepid cultural anthropologists, our data collection and cataloguing didn’t end there. Afterward, there was a dinner at a nearby Afro-French bistro, Les Enfants Terrible (the grilled calamari with chick peas are to die for), followed by dancing and people watching at The Cellar in the Bryant Park Hotel. The near naked chics, The Cellar’s answer to the Solid Gold Dancers, had me swearing to pull out my yoga mat and weights the very next day. I could say more but better yet, check out Liz’s blog at the Rebels of Romance for the um…unexpurgated story.

Happy (post) Labor Day,

Hope

Going Green…

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In many ways Manhattan is a very European city. For sure it demonstrates that a pedestrian society can not only work but work well. If I kept a car here, I think I’d probably end up having to shoot it like in those old spaghetti westerns when the trusty stead went lame on the trail and there was, well, nothing left to be done. (Really, did those wagon trains not have room for at least one veterinarian, for gosh sakes!).

Fortunately I don’t need wheels here in the Big Apple unless you count my shopping pushcart. Here not only the trains but yes, the subway and buses all run on time. Since moving, I like to say my “carbon footprint” has shrunk from small to minuscule. Think bound foot.

But for the next week I’m not only going green, I’m going to the Green as in Ireland. Or at least a small part of Ireland: Connemara and Galway. I’ve wanted to take this trip for more than ten years, no joke, and a few months ago I decided to make like the Nike ads and “Just Do It.”

And yes, you guessed it–I’m walking.

Well, first of course I’m flying. Once there, though, in the main I’ll be traveling not by horse power but person power. Mine. Got my back pack, got my Timberland hiking boots, and yes, my rain poncho all packed. Fortunately the seasoned guides with the tour group I signed on with, Country Walkers, won’t let me veer too far off course. At least I’m hoping not…

While I’m gone, hopetarr.com will remain in the capable hands–and under the 24/7 watch–of the fabulous folks at WaxCreative Design, so no worries there.

Many of you have emailed to congratulate me on launching Harlequin’s Blaze Historical Miniseries with Bound to Please. Thank you–and please keep the encouragement coming. It means a lot. Though I’ll be mostly offline this week, once I’m back home from the Emerald Isle I’ll be reading and responding to every single email in my in-box as I always do. In the meantime…

Happy Trails,

Hope

Calling All Shoe-a-Holics: Better a glass slipper than a glass ceiling

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Still waiting on all those RWA photos to rush in geyser style but in the interim Alert Blog Watcher and historical romance author, Diane Gaston sent me this link to author Esri Rose’s shoe review.

I met Esri briefly as she worked her way through the throng at RWA’s Saturday night Awards Ceremony dessert reception. Her mission: to snap as many photos of authors’ shoes as she possibly could. I, or at least my feet, are in the White Out Section, third photo down (and just above the really cool Italian glass beaded babies).

Oh, and btw, she’s running a poll so you can vote!

Keeping up with the Cinderella theme, Manhattan is a place where magical moments are happenstance, where expecting the unexpected quickly becomes a way of life. Last night I was savoring a lobster salad at A.O.C. Bistro in the West Village when who walks in but actor Mary-Kate Olsen. Or was it Ashley? Or does it even matter?

What I really want to know is where I can get a pair of those glass slippers.

Hope

Red Shoes Diary…

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Okay, so last night I had one of those quintessential Manhattan evenings that makes me proud to be a newly minted New Yorker tricked out in four inch red platform heels. Recently I reconnected with romance writer extraordinaire, Liz Maverick. Liz and I met “back in the day” at a Celebrate Romance Conference but beyond quick catch-ups at a conference here and there, we kind of lost touch. Like me, Liz is a recent transplant to the city, in her case from the West Coast, and a Saturday night out seemed as good a time as any to compare notes on our Single Girl in the Big City experiences so far.

Start point: Blue Ribbon Sushi in Soho where I met Liz and her buddy, Bonnie, for an early (for New York) dinner. After pounding down a truly amazing amount of excellent sushi, we headed Uptown to Terminal 5 where not one but three great bands were playing. The headliner, She & Him, was seriously amazing. The lead vocalist, Zooey Deschanel, who also happens to be a song writer and pianist, is so over-the-top talented it’s well…pretty insane.

This week my Manhattan adventuring will be put on the back burner as I head to San Francisco for the Romance Writers of America national conference. The conference kicks off on Wednesday night with a charity autographing to benefit literacy programs in the area. I’ll be signing copies of Bound to Please as well as Enslaved and later in the week giving a workshop on “Tracking Trends” in romance fiction with my friend, Terri Ridgell. In between taking care of “bizness,” there’s the Harlequin party at the fabulous Four Seasons Hotel and of course the conference finale, an awards ceremony and desert reception on Saturday night. Once I’m back in the city to catch my breath, I’ll be dishing on all of it–I promise!

In the meantime, have a great week…

Hope

Calling All Urban Cowgirls

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Okay, so I started off my Monday night with the best of intentions, namely to drop in on my French language “meet-up” group, say a quick good evening–better make that bonsoir–drink a glass of vino and then call it an early night and catch up on my zzz’s.

Then again you know what they say about the road to hell…

At the meet-up, I ran into a friend who persuaded me to extend my evening. Our first stop was Bryant Park. Through the summer months, the park’s Summer Film Festival presents free-to-the public outdoor films every Monday night. Last night’s selection was the classic “Arsenic and Old Lace” with the forever wonderful Cary Grant. You just don’t say no to Cary Grant…The park lawn was covered in blankets as movie watchers noshed on picnic fare, enjoyed the cool, clear (for Manhattan) evening air and yes, watched the film. Think Silver Screen at its best.

But there’s more. Afterward, my friend proposed we drop-in at Johnny Utah’s at Rockefeller Center where some other friends of his were bellying up to the bar’s mechanical bull. By that time, I was wide-awake and game to add to my mounting roster of Manhattan experiences, so I went along for the um…ride.

Johnny Utah’s bills itself as the ultimate urban cowboy experience and last night’s Bull Riding Challenge didn’t disappoint. Think single women, couples, girlfriend dyads, and yes, even the occassional strapping Manhattan male all riding to the um…range while a play list from hip-hop to classic rock blared in the backdrop.

Bull riding is probably one of those pursuits best left as a spectator sport and, in my defense, I wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion. So I passed–this time. That said, I was on that bull in spirit, really I was.

The above photos are, strictly speaking, from last year in Dallas. Still, you’ve met one mechanical bull, you’ve probably met them all. Then again, sometimes you just have to giddy up and go.

Hope

Happy Bastille Day from the Big Apple

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Okay, so admittedly Bastille Day was yesterday, July 14th, but alors, c’est la vie. I was too busy enjoying the festivities to report on them–my bad. Then again here in New York, Bastille Day isn’t so much a single day as a week of festivities and, quite possibly, a state of mind. My personal celebrating didn’t start until Sunday when I attended the Brooklyn Bastille Day street fair. A friend and I watched the festival goers play Patanque (a sort of hybrid of bowling and croquet) and then headed to the food and drink tent to sample a French aperitif–pastis–with an unpronounceable name as well as some traditional country French fare.

Last night I attended the Bastille Day Ball as the guest of a Francophone friend. The party was held at Spotlight, a club in Times Square, and sponsored by French Tuesdays, a group of Francophiles/Francophones with clubs not only in New York but also in Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Traditional French music early in the evening segued to popular club tunes as the evening wore on, some French, others American, not that the crowd seemed to mind. Small groups gathered on the rooftop balcony, which provided a panorama of Times Square–think “bright lights, big city” at its magnificent best.

A bientot,

Hope

A Lip Sync-ing Good Sunday…

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A coupla weeks ago my best friend, Suz, visited me in New York. Over her three-day stay, we hit the usual tourist suspects, including the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We also took time out for some amazing meals washed down with equally amazing wines.

Sunday brunch is a big deal here in the Big Apple and for Suz’s last day I wanted to do something special, something more memorable than the requisite coffee and eggs with jazz in the background. After checking with Suz to make sure she was game, I booked a reservation at Lips, self-billed as the “ultimate in drag dining.”

Having never been to a drag anything, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect though I’d passed Lips many times on my walks through the West Village. Not wanting to miss anything, we arrived a few minutes early, and the host showed us to our table. Our server, Empress (see above photo with Moi), showed up in short order with a mimosa for Yours Truly and a Bloody Mary for Suz. Sipping our drinks, we gave our food orders and settled back to be entertained.

And were we ever! As this event was billed as a gospel brunch, the servers/performers all wore long purple robes and the requisite flowing wigs. Once the show started, they spent the next 45 minutes or so strutting their stuff and grinding their groove things while lip synching to a variety of popular 80’s dance tunes. (How can you not love “It’s Raining Men”!) Between each number, the emcee strolled between tables talking smack with the audience and generally having us rolling in, if not the aisles, certainly our seats. (The refills on the mimosas didn’t hurt, either).

If you’re looking for something a little different to do on your next visit to NYC, I highly recommend Lips (2 Bank Street, West Greenwich Village, NY). Plan on bringing an open mind and leaving with a smile. (The humor at Lips while good-natured and IMHO far tamer than much of what airs on today’s TV is definitely adult, so I wouldn’t recommend the restaurant for families with young children).

On a semi related note, a new friend of mine here in the city recently said, “God doesn’t make anything that’s not beautiful. It may not be your taste, and that’s fine, but it’s still beautiful in His eyes.”

Happy Pride Week,

Hope