Blogs by Flo Fitzpatrick
Inspiration: Hot Stuff
10/1/2025 5:34:09 AM
How Hot Stuff came to be written
Writing Hot Stuff was born more of desperation than inspiration.
“Let me ‘splain...No...there is too much. Let me sum up”.
(Shout out to Princess Bride fans!)
In October of 2003, I signed a contract with Kensington Publications for a two-book deal. The first book, at the time entitled Ghost of a Chance, was due for release sometime in the summer of 2004. Great. But, there, in 12 point black and white font, on page one of the contract, was the small paragraph requiring me to write “Untitled Contemporary Romantic Suspense #2”. Cool! Two book deal! Then I saw the fine print, which noted a deadline of about 12 weeks. That was already a crazy tight deadline, but then I spotted the boo-boo where I wasn’t Flo Fitzpatrick… but Flo Fitzgerald.
I had no plans to change my name so I couldn’t legally sign the contract. It went back to Kensington to make the correction. They kept it for several weeks (I still don’t know why) before sending it back with the right name. But they had NOT extended the deadline for Book Numero Dos…that untitled romantic suspense. Which meant I was now looking at about six and a half weeks. It was early December. I was set to travel down to Alabama to be with family for about 10 days and I knew there was no way I was going to be able to write during the holidays.
Added to the angst, my editor kept rejecting every idea I’d suggested for book number two. Desperation was setting in.
Backtracking a bit. While I was waiting for an agent or publisher to hopefully buy Ghost of a Chance, I thought I’d try my hand at something more action oriented. I don’t write category romance, but at the time, Sihouette was introducing a romantic suspense line called Bombshell which wasn’t quite as formulaic as their other imprints and I thought, “what the heck.” Had gone so far as to jot down some ideas and even wrote a very exciting first chapter! It must also be noted that, as a dancer, I am a huge fan of Bollywood videos. I devoured them. While watching a particularly cheesy dance routine one Saturday morning, inspiration struck…combine Bollywood with a scary situation. Danger. And, of course, romance.
There was nothing to lose. I sent my editor an email early in December of 2003 with the phrase, “Bollywood, Irish rogue hero, stolen cursed statue.”
She wrote back, “Love it. Do it. Just don’t give me a cast of thousands.”
My original title was going to be “Shiva’s Diva” which was the name of the cursed statue. My editor nixed that one saying, “you’re overthinking. No one will have a clue what that means.” She was right.
I listed the elements I planned to use: India (weather is hot), Indian food (those spicy curries can blow your mouth into orbit with heat), Irish rogue hero (super hot!), and of course, the stolen, aka“hot” statue. The book was chock full of hot things so Hot Stuff it became. I even managed to include a tribute to Donna Summer’s wonderful song by giving my heroine a scene where she’s dancing in a “gentleman’s club” in order to escape the bad guys. 🙂
Then came part two of desperation. I needed to write a first draft Hot Stuff before heading south for the Christmas holidays. Fortuitously, at a writer’s conference earlier that year, I’d attended a lecture/workshop given by a friend, April Kilhstrom, called “How to Write a Book in a Week.” It sounded crazy but with an insane deadline coming up it also sounded like the only way to finish Book Two with the Ridiculous Deadline. So for a week, I sat at my computer, typing, ten hours daily. No edits. No proofreading. No outlines. No research. Just writing. I dreamt about the story. I spent my breaks eating delivery-Indian food and watching a Lord of the Rings marathon that was being shown that week on some cable channel, which was oddly restful for my brain.
April had warned everyone who took the workshop that the immediate product at the end of the week would read like a deranged monkey on crack had written it so best to just stick the manuscript in a drawer for a few days. Which I did. Finally, I edited and proofed and added the research I hadn’t had time to deal with during the actual Book in a Week…uh…week.
I’ve never been so exhausted in my life (and I used to teach cardio and theater dance classes…often three in a row… before heading off to four hour rehearsals)!
I sent the book in with a week to spare.
Hot Stuff ended up being nominated for Best Romantic Suspense for 2005 by RT Book Reviews…and optioned for film.
Sometimes desperation works.
Hot Stuff: bit.ly/4gCPM4
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