Susan Mallery is in the Lair!!!

By Kate Carlisle

I am absolutely thrilled to welcome New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery to the Lair today!

Not only is Susan the amazing, beloved author of over one hundred wonderful romances (most of which can be found on my keeper shelf), she’s also a dear friend and the smartest, funniest person I know.

Today Susan is going to share with the Banditas one of her most closely held secrets. She's a reality show fanatic! But don't worry, it's all for her art. No, really, it is. But I'd better let her tell you all about it.

Without further ado, here's Susan!

I have watched every episode of every season of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette at least once. My finger’s dialing 1-888 as soon as the credits begin to roll on American Idol. Project Runway even inspired my February release, Sunset Bay.

I tell my husband that watching these shows is work. “It’s research, honey! I have to understand the human mind and emotions. This is what I do.”

I doubt very much that he’ll read this blog, so I’ll tell you the truth: I watch reality shows because I love them. LOVE them. Can’t get enough of them. If I could watch my neighbors 24 hours a day without getting caught, I’d probably do that, too. At heart I’m a voyeur. I’m fascinated by how real people behave when they’re under constant surveillance. I wonder how I would react. Would I climb into a hot tub and kiss a man – on the lips – even though I was relatively certain that he had kissed another woman the night before in the same hot tub and would probably do so again with a third women the following night?

So you can understand my excitement when I heard about Oxygen’s new show, Pretty Wicked. The promos said that ten beautiful women who used their looks to skate through life would be forced to rely on their inner beauty, instead. The producers would give the women a “make-under” to frumpify them and then send them out into the world. In another episode, the women would be challenged to make a good first impression on a group of blind men. It sounded fabulous! Pretty Wicked promised to fulfill both my need to watch how caged humans behave, and my love of talking about bitchy women behind their backs. What could be better?

Except.

I cannot get into this show! It has missed the mark with me. Turns out, I haven’t been completely lying to my husband, after all, because understanding the “why” behind my disinterest has led to new understanding about my writing.

Pretty Wicked underscores for me the importance of starting a book with empathetic characters. They don’t have to be perfect, by any means. (In fact, how boring if they were!) But they need to be people whom the readers want to stick with through the course of the book. The premise of Pretty Wicked, it turns out, is fundamentally flawed. Although it made me giggle and got me to tune in for the first episode, that was the extent of its value. In order to make that premise work, the producers were forced to begin by showing the worst side of all of the contestants so that viewers would be able to see how much they’d changed and grown by the end of the season. This made the women all seem very shallow, unappealing, and one-dimensional.

I am much more interested in people who are accomplished in their own way. The Titan women of my new series, Lone Star Sisters, each have something they excel at. They don’t rely on their beauty or their rich father to get ahead in the world. They’re strong, independent, ambitious, and talented. It’s not enough for the heroines to just possess these traits. I have to show it, and I have to show it fast so the reader will want to stick with that character for 400 pages.

Under Her Skin, the first of the Lone Star Sisters books, starts with Lexi Titan meeting with her banker, who tells her that she has just three weeks to come up with two million dollars to save her business. Most readers can relate to money pressures, which creates instant empathy. Lexi’s emotional reaction – frustration, embarrassment, but still with a splash of self-deprecating humor – makes the reader feel that she’s a good friend going through a rough spot. I hope this means the reader will lean back, put up her feet, and settle in for a fun read.

Lexi’s sisters, Skye and Izzy, will get their chance with my June and July releases, Lip Service and Straight from the Hip. In November, their best friend Dana will round out the series with Hot on Her Heels.


Take another look at a book you’ve recently read and enjoyed. Did you like the main characters immediately? Why? How did the author make you empathize with the characters in the first scene? I’d love for you to share examples with us here so we can get a fun discussion going.


Susan is giving away one autographed copy of Under Her Skin, the first book in her new Lone Star Sisters series, to one lucky reader!