Dear friends:

For all of you who’ve been waiting, the time is finally here: SHAMELESS is out in the bookstores now. It’s a big, sexy, historical-tinged regency that concludes my Banning Sisters Trilogy. The reviews have been fantastic, and I have to say that I absolutely love the heroine, Beth Banning, the hero, Neil Severin, and the whole story. I enjoyed writing it from the first word to the last, and I hope you love it as much as I do.

SHATTERED, my latest thriller, is on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction bestseller list as I write this (it’s been out for just a couple of weeks) and has a leading couple to die for: Lisa and Scott steam up the pages every time they’re together, so if you like your romantic suspense hot, you should enjoy that one, too.

Which brings me to the question I want to ask you: do you like contemporary thrillers better? Or big, sexy historicals? I love writing - and reading - both. Thrillers are definitely the bigger sellers right now. But are historicals on the comeback trail? My feeling is that they are. What do you think? And which do you prefer? I’d love to know.

I’m busy working on my latest book, JUSTICE, a thriller starring Jess and Mark from PURSUIT that should be out in early 2011. I hope to have it finished by the end of next month. If only life would quit happening, I might even get finished sooner. It’s been one thing after another since December, basically. But one thing I’ve learned over the course of my career is that if you just keep plugging away at it, the book gets finished eventually. And writing can serve as a wonderful refuge through hard times.

Sitting in my office looking out the window, all I can think of is, what a wonderful spring we’re having here in Kentucky! The grass is green, the dogwoods are blooming in bright pinks and dazzling whites, and the temperature is in the high seventies. Plus, since we’re the home of the Kentucky Derby, we have three weeks of wonderful celebrations coming up, beginning with Thunder Over Louisville (the country’s largest fireworks display, plus an air show and an all day celebration) this Saturday and ending with the Derby itself, on the first Saturday in May, when we all sashay around in huge picture hats sipping juleps from silver cups (or something like that). In Kentucky, we do spring up right.

Happy reading!

In Regency England, a beautiful young woman finds her life thrown into turmoil by the arrival of a handsome scoundrel. Lady Elizabeth, the youngest and most headstrong of the three Banning sisters, has been engaged three times, and has most scandalously broken off all three engagements. Her fear of becoming any man’s property has kept her from marriage and earned her a reputation in the ton as a heartbreaking flirt.

Neil Severin is a wicked rogue, black of heart and black of reputation. A man of no morals, devoid of compassion, he is a government sanctioned assassin. And his newest target is a man Beth holds dear. When the flame-haired beauty thwarts his plan, Neil exacts his own brand of spicy revenge.

Beth despises him. Neil doesn’t care. But circumstances most unexpectedly throw them together, and with Beth’s life in danger, Neil finds himself in the unexpected role of hero, racing to save her before it’s too late.

What he never expects is the twist fate hands him: instead of his saving her, Beth winds up saving him. When the ruthless organization he works for turns its agents loose on him, only Beth stands between him and a death he thought he didn’t fear.

In a fight for their lives, Neil and Beth travel the British countryside, fleeing the ruthless killers out for Neil’s blood, the men after Beth, and their growing attraction to each other. Can Neil forgive himself for his past and accept Beth’s love? Can Beth overcome her fear and trust Neil? Will she have to choose between him and her family? And most important, can they both survive long enough to begin a new life together?

The third in the Banning Sisters trilogy that began with the New York Times bestsellers Scandalous and Irresistible, Shameless marks a dazzling return to historical fiction for Karen Robards.

- Click here to buy SHAMELESS.

The past is never over. It just gets dusty.

Lisa Shewmaker was a rising star in a prestigious law firm in Lexington, Kentucky; that is, until the firm went bankrupt and she lost her job. With an ailing mother to care for, Lisa takes the first position she can find: research assistant to District Attorney Scott Buchanan. Scott is as disagreeable as he is sexy, and Lisa suspects the only reason she got the job is because of her privileged upbringing as the daughter of a wealthy federal judge.

While reviewing cold cases in the Fayette County courthouse, a particularly thick manila envelope draws Lisa's attention. The details of the case are engrossing: An entire family-father, mother, and two children-disappeared more than twenty-eight years ago. Except that's not all: The mother in the photo could have been Lisa's twin, and the toddler in the picture bears an uncanny resemblance to Lisa herself. Before Lisa can learn more about her past, a series of catastrophes strike close to home. Lisa confides in Scott, and their relationship develops into something completely different. Together Lisa and Scott unravel a terrifying web of criminal connections that could destroy the very fabric of Lisa's life-if she lives long enough, that is.

-Click here to buy SHATTERED.

I wanted to let you know that OBSESSION came to stores in paperback yesterday, so everyone who missed it in hardcover can now run right out and buy a copy. I don't want you to miss it! Booklist called it "riveting...one of bestselling Robards' best", Midwest Book Review called it "a stunning and powerful tour-de-force thriller", Publishers Weekly called it a "page-turner" and The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News (FL) described it as "a psychological thriller that will keep readers on the edge of their seats." I personally love it, and I hope you will, too.

Okay, enough with the promotion. I'm trying to do a more frequent newsletter, four times a year, so you'll be getting one of these more often. This time, as always, there is and has been a lot going on in our lives. Last time I wrote, I told you that we were hit by a tornado. This time, believe it or not, it was an earthquake! Around the first of May, about five in the morning, we were all sleeping snug in our beds when the house started to shake. I woke up (my husband and sons, who might stir if a siren went off in their ears, didn't) to find that our bed was vibrating. Blinking, I stared at the ceiling in disbelief while thoughts of ghosts and demonic possession (the night before I'd watched a DVD of the The Exorcist) flitted through my head. Then I noticed that the chest was shaking too, and the chairs and the - well, all the furniture. All the house. Yikes!

I was just getting my head around "earthquake" (we live in Kentucky - we don't get earthquakes) when I heard a hideous squawk, followed by a loud thud. My parrot! He sleeps in his night cage in our master bathroom (he spends his days in my office), and something had clearly happened to him. (Cat? Heart attack? Who knew?) Just as I jumped out of bed, ready to yell "earthquake" at the top of my lungs (for all the good that would do), the shaking stopped. The earthquake was over, and come to find out the only casualty was - my poor parrot's tail. Apparently he had been shaken from his perch (he sleeps like the dead, too), fallen to the floor of the cage and gotten his tail feathers caught in one of his toys on the way down. Feathers were strewn all over the cage and he was climbing groggily up the side muttering "Bad bird! Bad, bad bird!" when I reached him. As of right now, little prickly feathers are growing back in on his bare behind. We all laugh at him behind his back.

Since then, we've had Derby (we throw a huge annual Derby party for kids), finals and, for our second son Christopher, high school graduation. A little excitement, a little humor, a little sadness (because Christopher is going off to college and we'll miss him) - that's how life in our house rolls these days.

Here's hoping yours is going well.

Best wishes,

Karen

As last thoughts before dying went it lacked something, and Katharine Lawrence knew it. Still, there it was: her kitchen floor was filthy.

Lying on her stomach on the hard, cold tiles with her wrists duct-taped together behind her back, she was up close and personal with the slick, smooth expanse of glazed twelve-inch terra cotta squares in a way she had never been before. That meant there was no missing the greasy smears on the surface, as if something oily had been recently spilled and not so carefully wiped up. Plus, there were small, muddy paw prints - the flat round face of her Himalayan cat, Muffy, flashed into her mind - along with some dried black-ish droplets that smelled like barbecue sauce and a random assortment of unidentifiable scuffs, stains and  dirt.

For God’s sake, didn’t she possess a mop?

“I’m going to ask you one more time: where is it?”

The question was growled with cold menace some three feet above her head by a tall, muscular man in a black ski mask who leaned over her prone form.  It was punctuated by a ham-like fist twisting hurtfully in her hair. The resulting yank on her scalp was nothing compared to the shaft of pain that shot down her neck as he brutally jerked her head back so that he could see her face, which, when it was not contorted with fear as it was just at that moment, was considered just a slightly crooked nose shy of beautiful. His gun - a big silver pistol - jammed hard against her temple. The impact of metal on fragile bone made her wince. The mouth of the gun was hard and cold, like death itself.

His eyes - hazel, close-set, with thick black lashes that told her he was almost certainly dark-haired beneath the mask - were harder and colder.

As she met them, terror skittered down her spine like icy little mice feet. Her breathing quickened. Her heart, already thudding, accelerated until the pounding of her own pulse drowned out background sounds like the hum of the refrigerator, the soft hiss of the air-conditioning - and the quick footsteps of this guy’s partner, who was searching the place, room by room.

“I told you: there isn’t one. It doesn’t exist, okay? Whatever you may have heard, it’s wrong.”

There was nothing else she could say, even though she knew already that he wasn’t going to believe her. He hadn’t believed her before, he wouldn’t believe her now. World without end.

His eyes darkened. His mouth, visible through a slit in the knit mask, thinned. Her stomach knotted with fear.

Would they kill her if they didn’t get what they wanted? The thought made her want to throw up.

Yes, was the despairing conclusion she reached as she considered the carefully calculated ferocity of the attack so far. There was a coldness to it, a purposefulness, that told its own tale. She was as sure as it was possible to be that they - this man and his partner, both tall, muscular guys dressed with eery similarity in black t-shirts and sweat pants - had no intention whatsoever of letting her live.

Or Lisa either.

Lisa Abbott, her dear friend and former sorority sister, had, in the unluckiest of coincidences, selected this weekend to visit Washington, D.C. for the first time in the seven years since Katharine had moved there right out of college, armed with her spanking new degree in political science and a head full of change-the-world ideals. Katharine had taken Muffy to a friend’s for the weekend - Lisa was allergic to cats - then picked Lisa up at Dulles just after five. They had been excited to be together again after so long, gabbing away a mile a minute as they filled each other in on what was going on in their lives. They had stopped for drinks at Le Bar in Georgetown, had dinner around the corner at Angelo’s, then gone clubbing. By the time they arrived back here, at her elegant two-story townhouse in the historic Old Town section of the DC bedroom community of Alexandria, Virginia, it was after midnight and they both had been more than a little sloshed. They had toasted their reunion with one more glass of wine, then gone to bed, not so much totally exhausted as totally wasted.

That was then.

Now Katharine at least was stone cold sober, and Lisa lay about three feet away, face down on the embarrassingly dirty floor with her wrists and ankles bound with tape just as Katharine’s were. More duct tape covered Lisa’s mouth. The airy, wrought iron base of the granite-topped kitchen island separated them, but they could still see each other because of the structure’s open design. Lisa’s shoulder-length auburn hair spilled over her face so that all Katharine had been able to see of her expression since she’d been flung there was the terrified glint of her brown eyes. Lisa’s silky yellow ankle-length nightgown was hiked to her knees, revealing the delicate trio of intertwined butterflies tattooed just above her left ankle. The ruffled hem fanned out around her tanned legs like the petals of some exotic flower. But at least the garment provided more coverage than Katharine’s own night attire of tiny pink satin boxers and a matching knit tank. Lisa was an inch taller at five-foot-eight. Katharine was the more slender of the two, but Lisa was just as sexy with her well-toned, athletic physique. As Kappa Delts, the two of them had cut quite a swathe through the Ohio State University frat boys once upon a time.

Even as Katharine stared fearfully into the cold hazel eyes boring into her own, she was conscious of the sobbing rasp of Lisa’s terrified breathing.

They had everything to live for. Everything.

“Last chance: where is the damned safe?”

One cold November night when Kat White was fifteen years old, she and some friends held up a convenience store. In the heat of the moment, one of the others shot and killed an off-duty cop moonlighting as a security guard. Kat and her pals fled the scene in a panic, and no one was caught.

Sixteen years later, Kat -- now Kate -- has built a new life for herself. Now a single mom with an eight-year-old son, she works as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia DA's office. But her dark past rears its head when she walks into court one day and discovers that she is to prosecute Mario Castellanos, one of her friends from that terrible night.

Kate is in a bind: even though Mario was the one who probably did commit the crime, he's counting on Kate to make sure he's not convicted. If she convinces the judge of his guilt, he'll claim that she was the one who killed the off-duty cop. Before real despair sets in, Mario is found dead-in her apartment, and with her pistol. When homicide detective Tom Braga shows up to investigate the murder, Kate is far from relieved; the two have clashed since she started working for the prosecutor's office. But when another man who knows the secret of Kate's past gets involved in the investigation, she learns that her life-and her son's-are in danger. Frantic, she realizes that she has nowhere to turn. Except, maybe, to Tom...

- Click here to read an excerpt.
- Click here to buy GUILTY.