Ellen Hartman

I like to post an excerpt of upcoming books here, but this time I'm torn. The opening scene is all the heroine's. It's a good scene (I think), and makes a fine excerpt. The issue is that I love the hero, Charlie McNulty. He's why I wrote the book. So...I'm posting the opening scene here, but there's a link at the bottom to my website where there is a second excerpt that's all Charlie. :-) Sarah Finley examined herself carefully in the mirror on the back of the closet door in her front hall. The gleaming walnut woodwork surrounding the mirror provided a dark counterpoint to her “hip, yet involved and respectable mother” outfit—a knee-length charcoal skirt with a slight flare at the hem to soften it, crisp, white shirt patterned with pale pink circles from the newest Talbot’s catalog, and a cropped black knit jacket with chunky, artistic buttons. She was debating about the abstract print scarf. If she wore the scarf would it say “I’m taking this issue serious...

I'm going to be part of the newly launched Super Authors blog on eHarlequin. We're having an official kick-off week starting June 1, but since the space is there and the community is there…it seemed like a prime opportunity for a little word game! Last December a community member posted a game where we guessed retitled holiday songs? Example: Embellish Interior Passageways = Deck the Halls . Jeannie Watt and I adapted that game by running the titles of the 2009 Supers (January-May) through the Obfuscation Machine. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to decipher the real titles. Jeannie and I will each choose a name from the comments to win a book. I’m giving away The Boyfriend’s Back , and Jeannie is giving away The Cowboy’s Redemption . (Both of them are on the list--there's a clue!) Kay Stockham is also giving away one of her books. If you want to be in the drawing to win books, post guesses in the comments on eHQ . Here they are, the New 2009 Super Titles...

I’m a technical writer. That means I write Frequently Asked Question pages (FAQs) on a regular basis. Did you know that most FAQs are made up by technical writers and have nothing to do with actual questions anyone has ever asked? Yep. It’s like writing fiction, except about bytes and bandwidth and secure passwords. And also the FAQs are usually nonfiction. Usually. Anyway, I wrote an FAQ for His Secret Past and the comments were a ton of fun so I thought I’d do one for The Boyfriend’s Back. 1. The title is The Boyfriend’s Back, but the cover shows his front. What’s up with that? Um. Good observation? But the title refers to the fact that The Boyfriend was gone and has now returned. He came back. Get it? 2. See that part on the cover where it says “Going Back?” Is that because her hair is blowing back in the wind? Is it, like, a caption? Because I didn’t think her hair needed a caption. Well, no. Sorry. You’re 0 for 2 here. Going Back means this book is part of the Superromance themed ...

His Secret Past , my May 2008 Superromance, has been invited to the Big Dance. It’s one of the 64 lucky books chosen to compete in the Smart Bitches/Dear Author March Madness Tournament ( DABWAHA —Dear Author Bitchery Writing Award for Hellagood Authors). Sweeet ! The author in me is delighted. What an honor. I must immediately go to the contest site, fill in my bracket, and crown my book the ultimate champion, right? Because it’s all about pride and I am proud of my book. (Look, I devoted an entire page of my website to it!) So yeah, I’m proud. The trouble is, on the tournament page there are prizes . Really good prizes like a Sony Reader and fantastic gift certificates and more. You win those prizes by guessing correctly about which book will ultimately win the tournament. Of the more than 400 people (as of this writing) who have so far filled out a bracket, not one has picked His Secret Past to win. ( Umm…Mom? Hellooo? Too busy for the internet today? ) So that’s my dilemma. If I ...

Thought I'd post an excerpt from my upcoming book, The Boyfriend's Back . It's available from Harlequin Superromance in May 2009. Here we go: Church, bar, church, bar. Statlerville was exactly the same as the last time JT had been here. But he was lost. How did a person get lost in their own hometown? Move away and stay away for fifteen years. That’s how he’d done it, anyway. Now he was late which was just perfect. He was only coming because his brother, Charlie, said he couldn’t do this without him and now he wasn’t going to make it in time. He glared at the empty expanse of dashboard. Of course his rental didn’t have a GPS—why use technology when you can keep right on making the same stupid mistakes forever? He should never have agreed to this. But Charlie had asked him. JT rolled down his window and took a good look at the streets of Statlerville. Something would ring a bell—show him the way. There . St. Pete’s, his high school. His mom’s funeral was being held at the S...

Last year, my friend, Diana Holquist, posted a reading challenge on her blog. I stole her idea and we had quite a fun time on eHarlequin posting our reading lists. I thought we might as well try it again this year, especially since I found some great books and new authors by reading the lists other folks posted! The eHarlequin post from last year is here: 2008 Book Challenge . So, here we go. You post 12 books you're planning to read in 2009. Doesn't have to be all romance--it's tons of fun to see the range of reading we all do. Here are the 12 books I've preselected. Natural Born Charmer --Susan Elizabeth Phillips. This was on my 2008 list and will continue to be on my list for as long as I'm reading books. How to Tame a Modern Rogue --Diana Holquist. She's the godmother of the list so she deserves a place of honor. Plus she's my buddy and I've read a bunch of drafts of this already but haven't seen the finished work. A Cowboy's Redemption --...