As a writer, I hope creativity will be one of the gifts I pass on to my son. It can be a scary venture, weaving story together from nothing, then sharing that vision with the world. But the results can be nothing short of amazing. Whatever your passion and gift, everyone can find a creative outlet to challenge and sustain them. The wonder of seeing others respond to your gift is a miracle you should experience at least once in your life. By definition, a legacy is a gift of property, or anything handed down from the past. My paranormal romantic suspense series from Dorchester is an exciting escape into the lives of psychic twins who are just discovering the power of their legacy: the ability to feel and control what others are feeling, and to harness others’ dreams. They spent Book One-Dark Legacy -fighting to keep a secret team of government scientists from shaping their minds into direct-strike psychic weapons. In Book Two, Secret Legacy, Sarah and Maddie Temple are still on the run. Only now the government has a psychically gifted child in its grasp-another piece of the Temple Legacy the twins never knew existed. Instead of fighting…

Riley Jenson, Guardian #7 April 2009On Sale: March 24, 2009Featuring: Riley Jensen368 pages ISBN: 0553591150EAN: 9780553591156Mass Market Paperback$6.99 Romance Paranormal Buy at Amazon.com Deadly Desire by Keri Arthur Seduction that kills. Pleasure to die for.She just can’t resist . . . Guardian Riley Jenson always seems to face the worst villains. And this time’s no different. For it’s no ordinary sorceress who can raise the dead to do her killing. But that’s exactly what Riley expects to find at the end of a trail of female corpses used—and discarded—in a bizarre ritual of evil. With pressure mounting to catch one fiend, another series of brutal slayings shocks the vampire world of her lover, Quinn. So the last thing Riley needs is the heat of the upcoming full moon bringing her werewolf hormones to a boil—or the reappearance of a sexy bounty hunter, the rogue wolf Kye Murphy. Riley has threatened Murphy with arrest if he doesn’t back off the investigation, but it’s Riley who feels handcuffed by Kye’s lupine charm. Torn between her vamp and wolf natures, between her love for Quinn and her hots for Kye, Riley knows she’s courting danger and indulging the deadliest desires. For her hunt…

I’ve been on a deadline, so I’ve barely left the house lately, which rules out being “on the road,” and I haven’t even been around much online, but there was a panel topic from FenCon back in September that’s been churning around in my brain ever since then. The panel was on “suburban fantasy,” and that’s brought up some thoughts about where contemporary fantasy novels take place. The current “urban fantasy” genre seems to draw heavily from the hardboiled detective novels, with a somewhat outsider hero (or heroine) who is tough and street smart, dealing with the underworld. In urban fantasy, that hero usually has some kind of supernatural powers or status, and the underworld is the world of the paranormal. But what about contemporary fantasy stories that don’t use the city as a setting? The suburbs would seem like an ideal place to explore the idea of the “other.” In our culture, we think of the suburbs as a place of sameness and conformity. The houses all look alike, and every shopping area has the same national chain stores and restaurants. Anyone who doesn’t quite fit in can be made to feel very left out. Now multiply that by…

We all have our comfort zones. We have stores we like to shop in. We have shows we like to watch. We have books and authors we like to read. So tempt us or tease us with new authors and new genres and we’ll still hesitate. Discovering New Authors There are many ways to discover a new author. For example, you may meet them via a book signing. A few months ago, my daughter went to an American Girl meeting at the local Barnes and Noble, a young lady, just fifteen years old was signing a book she wrote about how she and her family came to America. My daughter was fascinated. They spent thirty minutes talking and she autographed the book for her, a book that my daughter eagerly read when she came home. More than a year ago, I stopped in at another Barnes and Noble where an author by the name of Rick Riordan was signing books. I listened to him talk while I was browsing, the more I listened, the more interested I became. I ended up picking up two of his books – PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTING THIEF and PERCY JACKSON AND THE SEA…

World of the Lupi #5 February 2009On Sale: February 3, 2009Featuring: Lily Yu; Rule Turner352 pages ISBN: 0425225526EAN: 9780425225523Mass Market Paperback$7.99 Romance Paranormal Buy at Amazon.com Mortal Sins by Eileen Wilks FBI Agent Lily Yu and her werewolf lover are embroiled in a series of murders, each linked to a form of dangerous “death magic.” FBI agent Lily Yu is in North Carolina with her lover and mate Rule Turner, lu nuncio of the Nokolai werewolf clan, where he is to take custody of his son from the boy’s grandmother. It’s a purely personal trip until Rule, in wolf form, finds three bodies in a shallow grave. They carry the stench of death magic, which makes the murders a federal crime. Lily takes charge of the investigation, and soon realizes that nothing adds up—not the motives, not even the accused killer, who’s behind bars when death strikes again. But murder, however bizarre, is an everyday affair for Lily, who was a homicide cop before being recruited into the FBI’s Magical Crimes Division. A more personal shock arrives in the person of Rule’s son’s mother. Why is she challenging Rule’s long standing plan to bring his son to live among the…

As a new author, one of the most valuable and painful lessons I learned was that not every soul in the universe is going to adore my books. Before becoming published writers, many of us who eventually get there harbor delusions about throngs of fans clamoring to read our books and that every one of them will fall in love with our stories. Alas, that dream vanishes with a quiet, rueful sigh. The agony of reading that first acrid review is something only a published author knows and lives with. Knowing full well that Amazon and other sites, especially blogs, will serve up reviews crawling with fangs, talons, needles, and venom, we still visit the sites with anxious yet hopeful hearts. Every time we see terms like cheesy, poorly-written, clichéd, total waste of time and money, tawdry, tedious, and pedestrian, we wince and try to quell the tears burning our eyelids. To read more of Shoban’s blog about reviews please click here. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

Do you remember who wrote the first “cozy mystery” you ever read? I do – it was by the late, great southern author Anne George, who wrote the sassy Southern Sisters Mystery series. It was after enjoying her delightful writing style that I began to seek out more books in this genre. I was thrilled to discover there were “cozies” written using all types of settings – catering businesses, bakeries, flower shops – and then, be still my heart – I found a series set in one of my all-time favorite towns, Charleston, South Carolina, and in one of my favorite types of places – a tea shop! And so I was introduced to the wonderful mystery world of author Laura Childs – it was love at first read! Gerry Schmitt, who writes as Laura Childs, is the author of the Tea Shop Mystery series which features Theodosia Browning, the owner of the Indigo Tea Shop in Charleston. She also writes the Scrapbooking Mystery series, in which Carmela Betrand is the owner of the Memory Mine scrapbook shop in New Orleans, Louisiana. And if those series weren’t enough to keep her busy, Childs’ has recently introduced a new series, the…

When hinking about a topic for my Fresh Fiction blog, naturally my thoughts turned to the holidays. Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away, and I have wonderful memories of sharing gut-stuffing meals with my family at my grandmother’s house. That woman could cook! She grew up on a farm in Texas, the daughter of German Americans. She told me that at the age six, she was cooking meals for the family and caring for her infant brother. I can’t even get my 11-year-old to fix his own peanut butter sandwich. My grandmother taught me to cook. She also taught me how to eat. Because of her, I have very little food fear. I’ve even eaten fried chicken livers. (And once, a goat’s rump, but that’s another story. Thanks, Mom.) Grandma made the best sauerkraut and sausage on the planet. She made heavenly banana bread-a treat I would look forward to when I visited her home. What is it about a grandma’s house that smells like comfort and love? It’s like inhaling baby powder and cinnamon and jasmine. The minute I walked in the door, I felt like I’d gotten a hug, even before she wrapped her arms around me…

Saturday, I attend the Fresh Fiction sponsored panel at our local Barnes and Noble. The topic discussed: getting fresh with vampires. No, not that fresh (although Robert Pattinson’s name did come up more than once). Instead, the panel explored the sensuality of the vampire, the appeal of the bad boy and the evolution of the trope that began with vampires as the villains. Fresh Looks, Fresh Thoughts Some of the questions asked included why do vampires appeal? Particularly as romantic leads? Does your first experience with vampires color the rest? For example, if you watched the Lugosi vampire films or Langella, would you have a different perspective from the person who may have read Anne Rice’s angst ridden gothic vampires? Potentially, the answer is yes. In the 80s, vampires were still very much powerful, creatures of the night. It was rare to trust one and rarer still that the vampire would be worthy of the trust. No matter how good their intentions, their blood lust was a biological imperative – they had to have blood. Grief could send them into a tailspin or make them go dormant. Many vampires went to ground or to the sun when they could no…

Abra Barrow #1 March 2009On Sale: February 24, 2009Featuring: Abra Barrow; Red Mallin336 pages ISBN: 0345505875EAN: 9780345505873Mass Market Paperback$6.99 Fantasy Urban Buy at Amazon.com The Better To Hold Youby Alisa Sheckley Being Married to a Werewolf Gives New Meaning to the Words “High Risk Relationship.” SHE KNOWS WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. Manhattan veterinarian Abra Barrow has more sense about animals than she has about men. So when her adored journalist husband returns from a research trip to Romania and starts pacing their apartment like a caged wolf, Abra agrees to move with him to a rural mansion upstate in order to save her marriage. But while there are perks to her new life, particularly in the bedroom, Abra soon discovers that nothing in the bucolic town of Northside is what it seems. The local tavern serves a dangerous, predatory underworld. Her husband has developed feral new appetites and a roving eye, and his lack of humanity isn’t entirely emotional. As the moon waxes full, Abra must choose between trusting the man she married, taking a chance on a seductive stranger, or following her own animal instincts. An intense werewolf story with some interesting new twists. Excerpt Chapter 1 There…