Guest Blogger: Sarita Leone

Another week kicks off with another wonderful, talented guest for you all to meet... Sarita has even given you a yummy sounding recipe to try out! So, without further delay, over to my lovely guest... Sarita Leone....

First of all, I'd like to thank Denysé for letting me visit Fantasy Pages. Thank you for having me! (My pleasure, thank you for being here!!!)

I'm thrilled to be here—so thrilled, in fact, that I spent hours staring at the ceiling last night, wondering what would be the best topic for today's post. Writing? Maybe. Life? Possibly. Vineyard Mambo, my new book? I'm so excited about its release it's hard not to talk about the book. Characters? Might work. Something totally unrelated to writing, like the state of the world, politics or whether or not pop stars should wear underpants? Um, definitely not. There's way too much to say about any of that stuff in one blog post, LOL!

In the end, I decided to combine my first few thoughts...writing Anna, the heroine of Vineyard Mambo, to life. First off, I'll share a secret with you: I'm a real stickler for smart, steel-spined female lead characters. No hand-wringing, namby-pamby, what should I do? ladies for me. Not that those types of women don't have a place in the world—I’d just rather they didn't inhabit the pages of my stories. So Anna Romeo is an intelligent woman with a family she loves, living in a small town she adores with a cat that, she's sure, understands four languages. All is as it should be in Milton Falls—until someone is murdered. Then, Anna's life goes topsy-turvy and she does what any savvy woman would do. She decides to catch the killer and restore order to her world.

Bringing Anna to life was actually pretty easy. I think most characters have traits from either the author or someone the author's acquainted with. I'll confess, Anna has a lot of me in her. I love to garden; Anna gardens. I read voraciously; Anna's a librarian. I'm happy and have a great family and an adorable cat and...oh, no.

*Gulp.*

You don't think?...no, couldn't be...could it? No, definitely not. Uh uh. All I'm saying is, Anna and I have a lot in common.

Kidding aside, I think almost every character I write is embellished with bits and pieces of my personality. I lend those tidbits (quirks, according to my husband!) to my characters, hoping to breathe a little life into them with silly idiosyncrasies, everyday interests and professions readers can relate to. I hope it's working. I want my characters to feel real enough that readers see themselves, or someone they know, in them.

Me? I see a lot of myself in Anna—in all my characters, actually—but believe me, now that she’s on the page she’s on her own. Because really, once a character is written the author—at least this author, anyhow—moves on. A new round of writing, life, characters and, hopefully, a new book.

The book I’ve just begun writing features a demon-chasing car saleswoman with a penchant for wearing red thongs, so let’s not even go there. I don’t even want to think about what this one divulges! I’m sure there’s a bit of me in there somewhere but we’ll leave that for another time, another place…maybe.

Again, thanks to Denysé for giving me the chance to visit with all of you today. It’s been fun. If you’re in the neighborhood I’d love it if you checked in now and again at my blog, From the Heart. My website is http://www.saritaleone.com/. Vineyard Mambo and Snowdance, my first novel, are available from Whiskey Creek Press.

Anna is big into baking so I wanted to leave you with one of her recipes. Early in the story she knows Tony, her husband, will come home from work in a grumpy mood so she whips up a batch of brownies. They work their magic on Tony, and they’re a big hit in our house. I hope they are in yours, too.

Brownies for Lovers

3/4 cups melted butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 cup cocoa powder

3/4 cups flour

1/2 t. baking powder

1 t. salt

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13x9-inch pan.Combine butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add cocoa, baking powder, salt and flour and stir until mixed. Then add chocolate chips.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 25 minutes. Enjoy!