Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Book Club Rewind – Linda Conrad
Uncategorized / June 21, 2007

Linda Conrad, proud mama of a new Bichon Frise puppy, joined us over the phone last night for our book club chat. She is currently living in the Florida Keys, but spent most of her adult life in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and was first published in 2002. The inspiration for creating the Night Guardians series (readers often call it the Shadow series because of the titles) was from research Linda did for Between Strangers (Silhouette Desire). She does not have any Navajo ancestry. The hero in Between Strangers, Lance White Eagle Steele, is half Navajo. During her research, she visited the four corners Navajo reservation and learned about the Skinwalker legend. The four corners area is very rural, but she said it has some of the most fabulous natural wonders. The Night Guardians books can each standalone, but there is a thread running through all of them. Her heroes, the Brotherhood, learn a little bit more about the Skinwalkers in each book. The upcoming sixth book, Shadow Whispers, will end the series. We also asked about the possibility of a future standalone title for this series, but she says there are no real plans for one. On…

New Look to the DFW Tea Readers Group website
Guests / June 19, 2007

You may not be as excited as I am, but if you spent the time and effort upgrading and making it look pretty, well, I’d say why not shout about it? DFW Tea Readers website has a new look with more information about teas, club meetings and signings in the Dallas Fort Worth area. If we’re missing any signings or appearances, please contact us! We’d be happy to add them! Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

Plano Book Club – Note from this month’s author, Linda Conrad
Uncategorized / June 18, 2007

Man, how I love reading good books! And geez, how I hate finishing one! If it’s a really good book that hooks me into the characters’ lives, then I want to know more! What happens next? I want to know whether the best friend finds her own true love. I want to know if the brother will ever change his ways and find a woman who can tame him. I just want to know more! I guess that’s why I almost always write linked books and make up my own mini-series. Some readers tell me they feel the same way I do, that they love books in series. Others seem to feel somehow cheated that they must find and buy more books to satisfy their curiosity. I make sure each book tells its own story, but I guess I can’t help hinting that there might be more to it. And I suppose therein lies the problem. Sigh. Which brings me around to my newest series of books, the Night Guardians, and the reason I’m so looking forward to talking with the bookclub! The Night Guardians is a series of six books I’ve written for Silhouette Intimate Moments (now called Silhouette…

Saving money, new authors & getting through my TBR pile
Uncategorized / June 15, 2007

Romance Writers of America 2007 National Conference is next month in Dallas. Most romance writers will be at the literacy autographing fundraiser. The problem: you can only bring FIVE books with you to have signed. All others books must be bought there. Hence, my self imposed separation from buying new books in May – July because I know that I will be spending a lot of cash at the RWA literacy fundraiser. I have broken my vow of purchasing new books once. I went to a local book signing for Candy Havens and her latest, Charmed & Deadly. It is book three in a series revolving around a witch named Bronwyn. Now I am on a mission to locate the first two books in the series. Of course it is a slippery slope and I’ve already printed a Border’s coupon to use this weekend. 20% off. I ask you, who can resist 20% off?! That said, I am making headway through my TBR pile. I picked up a copy of Alyssa Day’s Atlantis Rising at the romance readers’ tea last month and finally got around to reading it this week. A really, really good paranormal romance and the beginning of…

The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes — a possibility for an intriguing novelty
Guests / June 14, 2007

Jennifer Cruisie, Eileen Dreyer and Anne Stuart… who wouldn’t look forward to a new book by any of these authors?? Well in July St. Martin’s Paperbacks will have an intriguing treat for us avid readers. Apparantly, at some cocktail party at some conference the three tossed around an idea that sounds like a hollywood pitch session that combines the sisters of Charmed meets Bewitched with a boom chica bow mow soundtrack in the background…uh, that doesn’t sound good. The discussion actually started with erotic paranormal being the next big thing, then came the sisters with out of control powers, eccetera. It could have just been a joke to pass time at the party(wonder if mojitos were involved) but then a game of “chicken” ensued between the authors and TA-DA our reading novelty, The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes was born. Now this is not just an anthology with each having a separate story but one story written together by all three of them. I can’t wait!! Will you be able to tell who writes each chapter or thread of the plot by their writing voice? Or will it be a new trick for publishers to trot out to increase sales by grouping…

Guest blogger – Marta Acosta
Uncategorized / June 10, 2007

Paranormal fiction continues to be very popular right now, which is good for me since I’m now writing the third in my Milagro De Los Santos series. The last thing I need is for vampires to lose favor with the public, thereby forcing me to do something unpleasant, like getting a real job. (The New York Observer just ran a story in which writers confessed the hardship of being successful. Honestly, it made me want to smack these whining nitwits upside the head with an unabridged volume of Shakespeare’s tragedies.) As fictional characters, vampires have it all over other paranormal creatures. Mummies are always unraveling, and you can’t understand a thing they say through all that fabric. Cannibal zombies smell bad, have rotting flesh, and want to eat your brains. Don’t even try to write a clever conversation with a zombie; it can’t be done. Demons are too metaphysically ambiguous, and ghosts are useless as love interests since they lack corporeal being. Werewolves have a following, but writers constantly struggle with the perplexing problem of clothing. Half of werewolf books are devoted to the shapeshifters’ ripping off their clothing during transformations, and then finding themselves stark nekkid behind the 7-11…