Crocodile Creek

Hi Rae, it's great to be here, and I hope that everyone with hurricane damage and power outages can get back to normal soon.  From what we've heard over here, the devastation wasn't quite as bad as some predictions suggested, but it still sounds scary.

In Australia, we call them cyclones, not hurricanes, and our second Crocodile Creek series (the one launching this month is our third) was centred around a massive and frightening cyclone, based on a real one that hit the coast of Queensland a couple of years ago.  Turns out there's nothing like dramatic weather for making people realize how they feel about each other...

This time around we've moved out to a tropical island paradise for our stories, which means most of the storm activity is in people's hearts and pasts, instead of in the air.  I hope we hear from readers who've enjoyed the previous eight books, as well as those who are new to the series.

Okay, I've chatted on for too long, here.  Since we are all in Australia, we will be asleep when people in North America are posting, so conversation will unfold slowly, but I'm really looking forward to hearing what people have to say.

Hi all - how wonderful for Croc Creek to have its own discussion.  Croc Creek is its own fabulous world.  Our stories revolve around Croc Creek's Search, Rescue and Medical Base in  the far north of Australia, and the C. C. doctor's residence - where young medicos live while they experience the thrills and dramas of emergency medicine in the uutback.  Thrills and dramas?   Something more?  Ooh that's right - romance.   It's human drama, a fabulous tropical setting, sizzle, heat and loving.  

Meredith, Lilian, Alison and I thought up this series while we were in the tropic ourselves.  I remember plotting stories over drinks with little umbrellas, and then Alison and I took off in a sea plane which was just about as scary an experience as  this non-intrepid romance writer wants to face.  But I'm sure we were bonded by it - or by the drinks with the umbrellas :-) 

During the time we've taken to write our twelve Croc Creek books our friendship has become rock solid.  So has Croc Creek.  It feels real to us.  Its characters are part of our lives and we're hugely humbled when you, our readers tell us it's real for you, too.  It's also fun. Our heros and heroines do much more daring stuff than ride in sea planes. 

We're aiming for more passion and peril for our Croc Creek staff in the future - thank you so much for coming along for the ride.

I am very much looking forward to the first book of the new series and the subsequent ones later this fall. I really enjoyed the previous two series and look forward to reconnecting with characters from the previous books.

I also appreciate to opportunity to chat with authors from my favourite Harlequin line. Collectively I have enjoyed many books written by you four, dating back to some written before Medicals were available in North America. Thank you for your talent.

Linda

Okay, for some reason that last post came through with all this weird code that I obviously don't want there and can't get rid of.  Apologies!  Rae, is there anything you can do about that?

Hi Nancy

I would so love to be able to tell you that the new series will be available retail in the US but, sadly, not yet.  I hope you'll be able to access them online.

It's wonderful to hear that you guys are talking about these stories and enjoying them.

And yes, the name Crocodile Creek came from joint brainstorming but - just to show that ideas are never wasted - the name of Wallaby Island that we discarded early on has become the setting for this new series.  We had fun making collages when we were together to talk about these stories.  All those gorgeous pictures of tropical island paradise with white sand beaches, palm trees and rain forest.  Not to mention the pictures of fabulous men we found to glue on.

Hey - it's a tough job, as they say ...  My hero for this book is Alex Vavunis.  I love a Greek hero!

Cheers for now

Alison

Lillian I snipped out the weird code, but I seem to have also snipped out some of Meredith's message   I'm so embarassed.  Can you send me the post so I can correct?

Jayne

In fact, I encourage it.

Sorry I wasn't here to respond to your plea, Lillian. It's been a crazy day, but I swear tomorrow you'll have my undivided attention. Make sure you tell Meredith we said hello and hope she gets her internet sorted out.

As for the name, isn't it funny how things come about that way? I think it's a great name and the story behind it makes it better.

I haven't had a chance to read the first books, but I do plan on trying to acquire them. I did order your book, Lillian, but it isn't here yet.

What would any of you say was the hardest part of writing this series and what is the easiest?

Rae

Thanks, Lissa. But you're still making it sound like an incredibly easy process, and I'm pretty sure it's not. Just how many books have you croc creek ladies written between you? How many books collectively sold?

I have this nagging suspicion I'm in the presence of romance writing royalty...

Kelly

Playboy Boss, Live-In Mistress, Modern Heat, Dec 2008 in the UK

http://www.kellyhunter.net

Hi All, I finally passed all the challenges my computer set for me and here I am - better late than never. The last series of Crocodile Creek was probably my favourite as it combined two great interests. I worked for years with children with disabilities, providing early intervention programmes then respite care so I know a bit about how difficult it is for parents with a child who needs special care to get a break or to spend time with their other children. In our fantasy these special children were getting such a break and it was fun seeing that they had fun! Then there's the Great Barrier Reef. When we first talked about the project - and it is Marion and Alison who first talked about it - blessings on you both! - we wanted all the elements that far north Queensland has to offer - tropical rainforest, wonderful reef islands, the Great Barrier Reef itself, cyclones of course, and the outback only a couple of hours drive over the mountains from the coast. And it is the reef island part that was my second love - though rainforests have their own magic. I worked for some years on a tiny coral atoll that had mutton birds - they're in the latest CC book - and reef all around it and that's when I met all the dangers that lurk in the unbelievable beauty of that world. Coral cuts become infected almost immediately, shells that poison and kill, stone-fish that lurk in the water pretending their a lump of rock - not to mention stingrays. A friend and Modern author Lindsay Armstrong is recovering now from a stingray slash to her foot - and it's over a month since she had it and doctors are still considering skin grafts. You might have heard that it was a stingray that killed the Steve Irwin the crocodile man. Anyway, enough disaster, I have to say that getting the series off the mainland and onto an island really fired me up.

I do hope for those of you who missed some of the earlier books that the series might go into the US From time to time we hear whispers that it might, so here's hoping because though I say so myself, it was a great series of books and as Lilian kindly said for me earlier, it was great fun writing it.

Meredith

Hi Nancy

The books are A Proposal Worth Waiting for by Lilian Darcy, Marrying the Millionaire Doctor by Alison Roberts, Children's Doctor, Meant-to-be Wife by Meredith Webber and A Bride and Child Worth Waiting For by Marion Lennox.

They are fairly recent editions, in fact the first two should be out on the Harlequin site about now. These four books are the third series of the Crocodile Creek series, the four authors writing one each in each series. gets kinda confusing, all the 'series' things.

And personally, I do hope you are getting plenty of help with your special needs child - I know the burden it puts on all the family and that you all need some 'special' care and attention.

All the very best to you,

Meredith

Kelly, you said you thought we'd made plotting our whole Crocodile Creek world sound too easy...  I guess the key ingredient in making it actually *feel* easy while we were doing it was our respect and love for each other's writing and our personal friendship.  We knew we were all team players who wouldn't throw a primadonna tantrum along the lines of,  "I don't care what your story needs, MY story needs him to die in Chapter Five!"  So no pistols at dawn over the colour of the bridesmaids' dresses at Emily's wedding, or the length of the ambulance ride down from the rainforest.

Hi again

 Gosh it's lovely to be talking about this again   Takes me right back to the fun of writing it and the others have hit the nail on the head about the key being our respect for each other's work.  The energy of having 4 writers (and I'm the baby here in terms of book numbers) sparking off each other takes on a life all of its own.  Magic.  This is reminding me of how much I loved it and how much I'd love to do it again.

Email was a huge asset, of course and the willingness of everybody to be available.  We even edited each other's work at times when it involved 'our' characters, so that their voices remained true.  I didn't even complain when Marion wiped out several pages of 'my' scene because she wanted 'her' characters interacting a bit differently.  I'm talking the test on Lilly here, Marion - remember???

 LOL.  There's no real dirt, Kelly.  Unless you want the story of the original brainstorming which did involve me falling off my bike into some dirt.  Possibly thanks to that nice champagne we'd had with our dinner but I'm neither going to confirm or deny that!

The biggest buzz?  I loved having Emily spit on Mike's helicopter in my first book.  Still makes me smile thinking of the wounded expression on his face.  He was my first Greek hero too.  And Alex, in the latest series is my second but he certainly won't be the last.

I am in lurve!

 Cheers for now

Alison Roberts

Hi Maggie!  Good to 'see' you here and so glad you liked the photo.

Yes, I'm sure a dolphin will appear in a story soon. My huge adventure that Maggie's talking about enabled me to go to my first American Romance Writers conference which was in San Francisco and it was amazing.  The best part was the Harlequin signing where I got to meet lots of people who absolutely love Medicals and can't understand why they're not on the shelves in their fave bookshops.  Had to say we can't understand it either but if enough people wrote to Harlequin and demanded a change, who knows what could happen?

I finished a whole month away from NZ with the Australian conference.  They run a 'romantic book of the year' contest and I'm just reading the finalists at the moment.  Marion's Croc Creek book 'Their Lost and Found Family' was one of the finalists (no surprises there) but I made the mistake of starting to read it in bed last night and stayed up wayyy too late.  Georgie has to be the fiestiest heroines ever.  So strong and angry and loving she kicks her way straight into your heart and stays there.  Unforgettable!

Now I need more coffee than usual so I can get a day's work done but it was worth it.

Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend.

Alison Roberts

for the list of titles.  I'm with Nancy on pitching the fit over availability in the US!!