The Dangers of Children and Animals by Alison Henderson

I've heard many actors refuse to work with children or animals because they're cuter and tend to upstage plain old ordinary adults. This could easily apply to books as well, so what do I do? I boldly step out on the tightrope and include both a precocious four-year-old and a monkey to my current manuscript!

This is not a groundbreaking technique. Many romance authors have featured babies and pets in their books for years, but it's new for me. The heroine in my first book was a widow with a newborn, but he was too young to play much of a part in the story. In Child's Play, the plot centers around threats to the hero's young niece, Grace, so she's front and center for a large part of the book. And then there's Balthazar. While most authors stick with dogs or cats, I decided to add a monkey--and he's not just any monkey.

 To give you an idea, here's the scene in which Casey, the bodyguard heroine, meets Balthazar:

“Oh, and I have to warn you…don’t leave any jewelry or valuables out in your room.”

She frowned. The university might not be located in the best part of town, but the up-to-date security system she’d noticed when she arrived should be sufficient to deter any garden-variety local thieves. “We’re on the second floor. You don’t have a problem with cat burglars, do you?”

Alec’s lips tightened. “Not cat. Monkey.”

She halted. “What?”

“Balthazar.”

“Who is Balthazar?”

He grimaced. “Follow me, and I’ll introduce you.”

He headed around the open center stairwell, past the bathroom and Grace’s room, to a smaller room that could once have been a nursery or servant’s quarters. In the center of the room stood a large kennel, the kind one might use to house a Great Dane—or a small polar bear. Standing on his hind legs and clasping the bars like a convict in a ’thirties prison movie was an angry-looking monkey in a diaper who shrieked the moment he spied Alec.

“Meet Balthazar.”

Casey took a couple of tentative steps, but froze when the monkey glared at her and shrieked again.

Alec walked closer to the cage. “You don’t have to be afraid. He needs a major attitude adjustment and will steal anything that’s not nailed down, but he won’t hurt you.”

Balthazar bared his teeth in a wicked parody of a grin.

Casey kept her distance. “What kind of monkey is he?”

“He’s a white-faced capuchin from Costa Rica. They’re exceptionally intelligent. I just wish this one could be persuaded to use his brainpower for good instead of evil.”

“It’s none of my business, but why keep him if he’s so much trouble?”

Balthazar coiled his tail around one of the bars like a snake and sent her a simian death stare.

“He’s only here for the term. He actually belongs to Tomas Huerta, a colleague of mine in the Anthropology Department. Tom adopted him after he was kicked out of a companion animal training course for being an anti-social little klepto. We agreed to monkey-sit this quarter while Tom’s away digging in Central America.”

“How does Grace feel about having a monkey in the house?” Casey knew how she felt.

“She’s the main reason he’s here. She’s crazy about him.” Alec gave a soft snort and shook his head. “Tom made sure to ask me when Grace was in the room. He knows how hard it is to say no to her.”

“Why would anyone want to say no to me?” a small voice interrupted.

They turned to see Grace standing in the doorway. She marched up to the kennel and stuck her fingers in to rub Balthazar’s furry cheek. The monkey nuzzled her hand then shot Alec a defiant so-there look.

Alec glanced at Casey with raised brows, as if to say See what I mean? then smiled at the back of his niece’s small, blond head. “I know it’s hard to believe, but on occasion, I do know more than you.”

      Grace turned her head and gave him a long-suffering eye-roll. “Oh, Uncle Alec, don’t be silly.”

So far, I'm managed to keep the child and the monkey from taking over, but I'm having lots of fun writing them both. Grace is adorable, and Balthazar is an incorrigible pain in the patoot, but ultimately, he saves the day. 

Alison 
www.alisonhenderson.com

I Did it Again by Alison Henderson

As you may remember, a couple of months ago I redesigned the cover for Boiling Point, the second book in my female bodyguard series. I was never completely comfortable with the original cover and didn't feel it was consistent with the series brand. I was so pleased with the new cover for Boiling Point that it got me thinking about the cover I'd designed for the third book in the series and my current WIP, Child's Play.

I'd struggled to find the right images for that cover, too. In this story, the heroine goes to work undercover as a nanny for an Archaeology professor whose young niece is being threatened. I had settled for a background of a child's bedroom, but once again, I'd struggled to find a figure I liked. Encouraged by my success with Boiling Point, I decided to try again. 

Now that the first two books featured outdoor background shots of the settings, I thought I'd take another look for a snowy college campus scene and found several I liked. I also found a new image of a woman with a gun wearing boots (season appropriate!) that is quite similar in pose to the figure on the cover of Unwritten Rules. Then I put a couple of my favorite settings--one with a red brick collegiate building and one with gray stone--together with the figure and showed them to OG.

Imagine my surprise when he pointed to the photo with the stone building and said, "That's Blair Arch at Princeton! I lived in that dorm one year, and that's the window of my room."
Well, that sealed my choice. Now, I not only have a cover that continues the image of the series brand perfectly, but it features OG's dorm room! (It's the second floor window to the left of her left calf.) According to him, this represents every college boy's fantasy--a giant woman in high-heeled boots and a micro skirt, carrying a gun and appearing right outside his window. LOL

Here are the three covers for the series. I finally think I've got a solid, unified look that reflects the tone. Whew! If at first...

And on another positive note, the book is actually progressing rather well.

Onward and upward!
Alison
www.alisonhenderson.com

Recovering from January by Alison Henderson

I was all ready to buckle down and get back to work in January. Really I was. 

Since I don't have contractual deadlines to meet, I like to take time after a new book releases to concentrate on promo and catch up on life. Since I usually time my releases for early fall, the holidays tend to sneak in gobble up big chunks of my time, too. Before I know it, it's January--time to dive head-first into a new project.

Until this year.

I started off fairly well. I came up with a basic plot outline for my new female bodyguard book Child's Play and completed my character profiles. I even managed to write the first chapter. Yay! That took me through the first two-thirds of the month. Then, for fairly obvious reasons, I hit a creative brick wall. Every day the news got worse, sucking up all my energy and natural optimism. By the 31st, I'd had it. Something had to change. I refused to let malevolent outside forces steal my life any longer if I could help it.

Along with everything happening in the nation and the world, my mood was not improved by the fact that I hadn't been able to exercise since the first week of December because of a nasty case of bursitis in my left hip. I'm not a fanatic--I don't run marathons or anything--but I am used to walking briskly on the treadmill five or six days a week. It boosts my energy and supports the illusion that I'm still young and lively. Since the main treatment for bursitis is rest, I had to abandon my routine when I needed it most.

On February 1st, I decided I'd given my body enough time to heal, and I got back on the treadmill. I'm starting slowly and alternating days with strength bands in an attempt to avoid another flare-up, but it feels good to move again. I'm also getting back into my book.

While I couldn't think about words, I worked with pictures. I like to have an image of the cover in mind while I'm working on a book for inspiration, so I played around and came up with this. What do you think? For continuity and branding, I used the same basic color scheme, fonts, and design elements (legs and gun) as the other two books in the series.

The heroine in this book is a PhD student in Child Psychology who goes undercover as a nanny/bodyguard to the four-year-old niece of a Professor of Egyptian Archaeology after he receives a veiled threat directed toward the child. The story includes stolen artifacts, a bad-tempered monkey named Balthazar, and an enigmatic villain named Fermin LeBlanc. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? Now all I have to do is get busy and write it!

Alison
www.alisonhenderson.com