February 2010On Sale: February 1, 2010Featuring: Jake Culpepper; CiCi Hurst224 pages ISBN: 0373753004EAN: 9780373753000Mass Market Paperback$4.99 Romance Contemporary Buy at Amazon.com Hill Country Hero by Ann DeFee Only desperate, try-anything-once CiCi Hurst would agree to take the job of mascot for her daddy’s football team. But the recently dumped Hill Country heiress doesn’t expect to be tackled to the ground by six feet five inches of flat-out gorgeous male…. Jake Culpepper is every woman’s dream. Too bad the pro-football star is exactly the type CiCi’s vowed to avoid. It’s a no-brainer: no more low-down, cheating athletes! So why is she getting the feeling Jake’s different? Jake can’t believe he just decked the boss’s daughter! Now he’s paying the price by working for CiCi at her family’s camp for underprivileged kids. He didn’t plan on playing the hero. Or falling so hard for her. He just hopes CiCi feels the same way. Or he’ll be the loneliest hero in the Lone Star State! Excerpt It was official. Collier Channing “CiCi” Hurst (formerly Tank-ersley) was slowly but surely losing her mind. And what was her first clue? Could it be that she was seriously thinking about asking Daddy for a job? CiCi…

I saw it again this week: “Romance novels, like fairy tales, lack realism; they make young women believe a handsome prince is going to rescue them with promises of happy-ever-after.” Oh, please. I loved fairy tales as a girl, but spent not a single second staring down the road for my prince. It’s my considered opinion that those who use this analogy know fairy tales only from Disney movies, particularly “Cinderella” with its dreamy-eyed heroine singing “Some Day My Prince Will Come.” They are seriously misinformed. (And don’t get me started on the premise that women can’t tell fiction from real life while men apparently have no problem distinguishing between James Bond’s 007 stunts and their daily grind.) To read more of REALISM AND FAIRY TALES please click here. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.