Thank you, FreshFiction, for inviting me to be a guest on your blog! My 19th novel, The Lies We Told, is out this month and I thought you might enjoy a peek behind the scenes at how my significant other, photographer John Pagliuca, and I created the book trailer for it. Book trailers are hard to make. Movie trailers are easy (by comparison) because movies are visual and you can simply take carefully selected scenes from the film. You don’t have that luxury with books. It’s tempting in making a book trailer to try to interpret the story literally, using narrative either typed on the screen or in a voice over. She was beautiful and good hearted. (Cue image of beautiful, good-hearted woman). Until the night He appeared. (Image of scary looking but very handsome dude. With a couple of tattoos. Nice ones). On that night (Image of dark night, clouds drifting across a crescent moon) her young brother disappeared. (Image of young boy slowly fading to black). Okay, they’re not all that cheesy, but you get the idea. They’re a challenge to do well. I like my two previous trailers for Before the Storm and its sequel, Secrets She…

Demonborn #2 August 2009 On Sale: August 1, 2009 Featuring: Annabelle Armstrong; Quinton Valtrez 320 pages ISBN: 0446199486 EAN: 9780446199483 Mass Market Paperback $6.99 Add to Wish List Romance Paranormal Buy at Amazon.com Dark Hunger by Rita Herron He’s everything she fears…she’s everything he craves… Telepath Quinton Valtrez wants nothing from Annabelle Armstrong except her luscious body. One peek into her mind, however, and he knows that that this CNN reporter has uncovered his identity as a government assassin and is determined to expose all of his dark secrets, one by one. He’ll never let that happen, his uncontrollable hunger for her be damned. But when a bomber strikes as they’re both in range, killing hundreds, Annabelle devotes herself entirely to the story. Thrown together by danger and desperate to stop the violence, Quinton and Annabelle uncover that the serial bomber is a supernatural attack, perpetrated by an evil force that exerts mind control over people and turns them into killers. But when the forces of evil unite to overpower them, targeting Annabelle in order to ensnare him, Quinton must face his own destiny as one of the Demonborn and join forces with his brother Vincent (from Insatiable Desire) to…

Young Dorothy wants to run away from home. Later, she’ll move heaven and earth to return home. Daniel won’t compromise his principles as an artist when he doesn’t like the way he’s directed to play a scene. When he’s later called to play an outrageous roll in order to be close to his children, he’ll perform in any way necessary. What happens to change the goals/outlooks/lives of these characters? An inciting incident. All good stories depend on an inciting incident to get them going. What distinguishes an inciting incident from other incidents in a story? The inciting incident, the event which jumpstarts the story and prompts protagonists to make lofty goals, is an event which will change a character’s life, his outlook on life or both. In the Wizard of Oz Dorothy wants to run away from home when a neighbor woman takes away Toto, her dog. Losing her pet is an “incident” in her life, but it isn’t a life changing incident. Landing in Oz is a major event, the inciting incident which is going to change everything about her outlook on life. In “Mrs. Doubtfire” Daniel gets fired from another acting job because he won’t follow the director’s…

April 2010 On Sale: March 30, 2010 Featuring: Jaxon Castille; Libby Jamieson 384 pages ISBN: 0061808776 EAN: 9780061808777 Mass Market Paperback $7.99 Add to Wish List Romance Paranormal Buy at Amazon.com His Darkest Hunger by Juliana Stone Jaxon Castille: jaguar shifter, warrior, assassin. He has long hungered for the chance to make his former lover, Libby Jamieson, pay for her deadly betrayal. After three long years he’s finally found her. The hunt is over . . . But the Libby that he finds is not what he expected. She has no memory of their tumultuous affair, of her treachery, of anything beyond her own name. A shadowy and deadly clan has marked them both for death, and in an instant, he game changes: the hunter has become the hunted. On the run, with the ghosts of their past between them and a dark, desperate hunger quickly reclaiming their bodies and souls, Libby and Jaxon must discover the truth behind the dark forces working against them. Together, they must grab hold of a destiny that has the power to either heal them or destroy them. But the truth is far more shattering than anyone could imagine . . . Interesting mythological…

A reading drought? Guilty! I never thought I would say that. I’ve been an avid reader all my life. On vacation, my suitcase hit the maximum weight limit due to the layer of books in the bottom. If I walk out the door, I have a book in my bag. Just in case, that line in the grocery is really long, or the dentist can’t see me quite yet, or . . . I haunt bookstores. Even when I was busy raising a family, I read, not only for myself but I read to my children, instilling a similar love in them. I started reading Golden books, Nancy Drew, children’s classics (I always wanted to go live with grandfather in the Alps, like Heidi, even though my lovely grandparents were firmly planted in Indiana and New York) and continued on into adulthood, with more grown up fare. Until recently. Oh, I still love reading good stories; I’m just not doing it much. I still love books, but I find it harder to get lost within their pages. For a proud bookaholic, that’s an embarrassing admission. I’ve been trying to figure out why the change, and what to do about it….

June 2010 On Sale: May 25, 2010 Featuring: Allegra Grimaldi; Joscelin Boleyn 191 pages ISBN: 1609280288 EAN: 9781609280284 Mass Market Paperback $5.50 Add to Wish List Romance Historical Buy at Amazon.com The Devil’s Mistress by Laura Navarre Desire has never been so dangerous. Living breath-to-breath beneath the shadow of violence, Italian perfumer and apothecary Allegra Grimaldi was forced to learn the killing arts from the Hand of God—a religious assassin. She has sworn never to use her deadly skills, but now a blackmailer has her by the proverbial throat. To save her family from an ugly death, she must do the unthinkable. Infiltrate the court of King Henry VIII, poison the heretic Anne Boleyn before she becomes queen—and frame Anne’s bastard brother for the crime. Honest and principled, Sir Joscelin is the perfect pawn. Allegra is clever, captivating…and her warning to Anne immediately rouses Joscelin’s suspicion. Sworn to protect his sister, and striving for recognition from the powerful father who disdains him, Joscelin has no choice but to put aside his attraction to the mysterious lady and gather evidence to see her burn for witchcraft. To avert a disaster that will change the face of Europe, this stalwart soldier of…

I was asked recently where I get my ideas for my books. Well, the short answer is: everywhere. The long answer is: I write the kind of books that I like to read, so I usually combine my favorite plot elements to create a fun/fast-paced story. For ROYAL CAPTIVE, I took one of my favorite islands, Cyprus, a handsome prince, a reformed jewel-thief, and tossed them together in an international heist. I like it when sparks fly between characters from the beginning. Makes my job as a writer so much easier. I really lucked out with this couple. Prince Istvan didn’t trust Lauryn as far as he could throw her. Once a thief, always a thief in his eyes. The second Valtria’s crown jewels disappeared, he was certain that she was to blame and went after her with a vengeance. I love writing these royal brothers. They are honorable, brave and would gladly give their lives for their country, family and the women they love. I even set up a special page on my web site for them, I never thought I would be partial to prince heroes, to be honest. Originally, I submitted an idea to my editor about…

Beach and Vacations at Fresh Fiction! Today (June 14th) is the LAST DAY to enter the summer’s hottest contests. Lots of great prizes await you. Click here for Pack Your Beach Tote Contests Add your own vacation story and be entered in our special “vacation planner” drawing to win a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate. Just tell us your vacation plans, summer reading list, recipes or whatever you’re doing this summer. Click here to add your own bit: reading list, vacations plans, food, whatever.

L.O.S.T. #1 June 2010 On Sale: May 25, 2010 Featuring: Angela Giacomelli; Jax Cassidy 384 pages ISBN: 1439109826 EAN: 9781439109823 Mass Market Paperback $7.99 Add to Wish List Romance Suspense, Romance Paranormal Buy at Amazon.com Enemy Lover by Karin Harlow When falling in love is the most dangerous option of all… When you have no alternative, then you call in L.O.S.T. Because with the Last Option Special Team, it’s do or die. . . . It’s Jax Cassidy’s first mission for L.O.S.T.—one that will give the former cop who went rogue a chance to prove herself. Her assignment: gain the trust of assassin Marcus Cross . . . eliminate him . . . then take down Marcus’s mentor, Joseph Lazarus, a man with a bold eye on the White House. But the woman who’s known by her team for being a femme fatale succumbs to passion, only to discover Cross’s deadly secret. He’s a vampire, and Joseph Lazarus is his creator. Left for dead by his platoon in the violent hills of Afghanistan, Special Ops sniper Marcus Cross was given a second chance at life. His newly heightened skills make him the perfect killing machine, and as Lazarus’s right-hand man,…

When you write fiction as I do, you rely on your imagination to make the story come alive, creating a setting readers can visualize, characters people can root for, and a plot worthy of escape. But when you’re writing a series, you have yet another task—crafting characters that people want to follow from one book to the next. The creation of interesting characters is doubly important in my Southern Sewing Circle Mystery Series because the books, themselves, use relationships as the hook. Sure, these women sew, but it’s the coming together as a group—and the friendships that are formed as a result of a common interest—that’s truly at the heart of these books. Think about it… Friendships tend to form over a common interest—similar aged children, a particular sport or hobby, or even a favorite cause. These interests provide a common ground that often supersedes a host of other differences (age, ethnicity, religion). It’s this common ground (sewing) that I use to bring nine unlikely souls together, thereby giving myself a more colorful palate from which to work. Let’s take a look… Tori Sinclair is the protagonist in my series. She’s in her late twenties, hails most recently from Chicago,…