Romance Writers of Australia's annual conference is on this weekend in Melbourne! I leave tomorrow for a little holiday before conference and cannot wait! This will be my third RWAus Conference and I have every hope that it'll be as fun as the previous two. So here's just my top 5 things that I love about the RWA Conference.

There's no doubt that Nora Roberts is a legend for a reason as she writes truly gripping romances across many subgenres. I was lucky enough to finally discover her in 2011 and it was Nora who not only introduced me to good romance, but to captivating romantic suspense. In 2012, I pretty much binge-read all of Nora's romantic suspense novels and buying books quickly became very expensive. But I have no regrets.

So upon the release of her latest standalone suspense title Under Currents, here is a list of my top 5 romantic suspenses by Nora.

Romance novels, especially category romance, are easily defined by 'tropes', a quick summary that immediately tells you what sort of love story you're going to get. There's the romantic relationship tropes, like marriage of convenience, accidental pregnancy, and best friend's sibling. Then there are more character tropes, like royalty, cowboy, and billionaire. Either way, the moment you identify one of these tropes by the title, cover, or blurb, it can be an immediate indication of whether you're interested in the story or not.

So these are just my top 5 tropes that will always grab my attention.

I love dogs. I've always had them in my life and they sometimes feature in my novels. My rural romantic suspense series in particular has a heavy dog thread and feature many dogs from Border Collies, Australian Cattle Dogs, Kelpies, and a number of Jack Russell Terriers.

So here's a list of my favourite dog breeds. And if you know me, this list will be of no surprise.

Here's a random list - my top five names for girls. As writers, we are always thinking of names, deciding what name suits certain characters, and finding new names we fall in love with. And while favourite names often change, there are some that usually stick.

So here's my list of top five girls names.

Writing is an individual creative process and different for everyone. Some writers need the quiet and private spaces of their offices to write while other's thrive on being out and about in the community and writing in coffee shops tends to be quite popular.

For myself, this process has changed over time. Once, I was quite content writing in the classroom instead of doing my math or English or science work. Then I could happily write at home in my room while watching TV. Then I became a in my room/office with total silence (except maybe classical music) person. But lately, home isn't my favourite place to write either and I've branched out. So these are just some of my favourite places, overall, to write.