Well, summer is well and truly upon us and what better way to pass these glorious, sun-filled days than with a lively and fun cozy mystery! June features a bumper-crop of our favorite genre, with more great titles due out in July and August. Fill up your beach bag or your suitcase with your favorite author and take their stories along with you on vacation this summer! Dive in with me to explore these new titles! Paddling around at the swallow end of the pool are three new series debuting this month. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEED: A Haunted Guesthouse Mystery by E.J. Copperman features Alison Kerby and her smart, sassy 9-year old daughter Melissa. After moving into a huge old Victoria house in her hometown of Harbor Haven, New Jersey (on the Jersey Shore) that she plans to convert into a guesthouse, Alison discovers that she and her daughter aren’t the only residents of the house – two feisty ghosts, named Paul and Maxey, are in residence and they want Alison to find out who murdered them. This promises to be a delightful series! (Copperman also writes the Double Feature Mysteries and Aaron Tucker Mysteries as Jeffrey Cohen.) Another…

Scumble River #12 April 2010 On Sale: April 6, 2010 Featuring: Skye Denison; Wally 272 pages ISBN: 0451229614 EAN: 9780451229618 Paperback $6.99 Add to Wish List Mystery Amateur Sleuth, Mystery Woman Sleuth, Mystery Cozy Buy at Amazon.com Murder Of A Wedding Belle by Denise Swanson School psychologist Skye Denison is already in a tizzy of indecision contemplating her boyfriend Wally’s marriage proposal when she very reluctantly agrees to act as maid of honor in her California cousin’s over-the-top platinum-style wedding. What’s more, she’s expected to assist the control-freak wedding planner, which means being available to help 24-7. There goes Skye’s much-needed summer break…. Then Skye discovers the flawlessly chic wedding planner lying not so flawlessly dead less than a week before the big event. Suddenly Skye is working double duty on two fronts: making sure every elaborate nuptial detail is executed perfectly, from the butterfly release to the martini luge, and helping the police find out who hated the bossy bridal consultant enough to bash her on the head. Can Skye get her cousin to the church on time — and save herself from a killer who may actually be on the guest list? Who Killed the Wedding Planner?? Previous…

In June of 1988, I created the beginning of the Morgan’s Mercenaries/Morgan Trayhern saga series. Back then, no one had done three books in a row and I was the first to do this with  Harlequin/Silhouette. Now over 50+ strong, I have set my sights on creating a second one. This is the Jackson Hole, Wyoming saga-series. It is about Wild West, stories about cowboys and the hardy men of this region. I refer to the second saga in short hand as JHW. I often get questions from readers about “How do you create a saga?” It’s not easy. There’s a tremendous amount of thought and planning that goes into it.  The first prerequisite is to have a backdrop large enough to put a whole cast of characters on. Secondly, there has to be a focal point that readers want to read. In Morgan’s Mercenaries, these were about men and women who were on the edge of danger as they fought and loved. In JHW it involves a fascinating town set beneath the shadow of the mighty Teton Mountains of western Wyoming. And forty miles north of Jackson Hole is our most well known park, Yellowstone. I spent many years…

Summertime, and the reading is… well, maybe not easy, but a lot more fun than assigned reading in school. Even if you’re not on a school schedule any more, here are some books to check out for vacation reading. Starting the month is FORGIVE MY FINS, by Tera Lynn Childs. I love Tera, and her books, one of which (OH. MY. GODS.) won the RITA® Award last year for Best First Book. I caught up with the author and asked he to tell me a little about this ultimate fish out of water story. Rosemary Clement-Moore: I’m not usually one for puns, but I love the title FORGIVE MY FINS. What’s it about? Tera Lynn Childs: FORGIVE MY FINS is the story of Lily Sanderson, aka Princess Waterlily of the underwater kingdom of Thalassinia, who goes to high school on the mainland. For three years she’s been crushing on swim star Brody and avoiding obnoxious biker-boy neighbor Quince. But when a dark library and mistaken costume identity leaves Lily magically bonded to the wrong boy she’s in for a tsunami of an adventure as she tries to get separated from Quince and convince Brody he’s her perfect mermate before her…

Konigsburg #2 May 2010 On Sale: May 4, 2010 Featuring: Pete Toleffson; Janie Dupree 272 pages ISBN: 1605047163 EAN: 9781605047164 Trade Size $15.00 Add to Wish List Romance Erotica Sensual Buy at Amazon.com Wedding Bell Blues by Meg Benjamin Who knew you could find the love of your life at the wedding from hell… Janie Dupree will do anything to make sure her best friend has the wedding of her dreams, even if it means relinquishing what every bridesmaid covets and never gets—the perfect maid-of-honor dress. Problem is, family drama as tangled as a clump of Texas prickly pear cactus threatens to send the skittish bride hopping aboard the elopement express. Janie could use a hand, but the best man’s “help” is only making things worse. Pete Toleffson just wants to get through his brother’s wedding and get back to his county attorney job in Des Moines. He never expected to be the engineer on a wedding train that’s derailing straight toward hell. Janie’s the kind of girl he’d like to get close to—but her self-induced role as “Miss Fix-It” is as infuriating as it is adorable. If they can just fend off meddling parents, vindictive in-laws, spiteful ex-boyfriends, and…

I had a really successful May. I read and loved BLOWN AWAY by Sharon Sala. I have to be honest here, and say that I’ve been stockpiling Sala, but haven’t really had the desire to read them. However BLOWN AWAY was a wonderful book, and really reminded me about what had drawn me to Sala in the beginning of my reading journey. I also read the concluding book in the Chicks With Sticks trilogy by Heidi Betts. KNOCK ME FOR A LOOP was a fun romantic romp. If you haven’t yet read this trilogy I strongly suggest reading in order so that by the time you get to KNOCK ME FOR A LOOP you understand the relationship between the hero and heroine. I hope that Ms. Betts continues to write romantic comedies for a long time to come. I could go on and on with the titles that I read and had trouble putting down in May, but I don’t want to bore you. I will however tell you that I read THE LIES WE TOLD by Diane Chamberlain. I believe this book to be classified more as Women’s Fiction than romance, but was swept up in the story, and…

It can’t possibly be June already. Wasn’t it just February? I should be grateful for the warmer weather and the lazy days of summer, but unfortunately there isn’t much time to laze these days. (Smile) I did make myself a promise, and that is reading at least one book a weekend. So far I’m averaging two, and I have to say it’s the one way I can get my brain off of my crazy life and send it into a lovely new world someone else has created. There are tons of fun books and here are a few for you to check out: BLOOD SONG is the first of a new series by Cat Adams (formerly C.T. Adams & Cathy Clamp). This is the story of Celia Graves, a vanilla human trying to get by in a paranormal world. “But Celia’s life is rocked when she’s bitten by a master vampire and becomes half human and half vampire,” says Clamp. “Celia’s world was first developed in an unusual fashion. There’s a saying: ‘A picture is worth a thousand words.’ Well, in the case of this book, a picture was worth a hundred thousand words. Cie Adams and Cathy Clamp were…

HarperTeen kicked off the first week of summer with the Supernatural Summer Tour.  This is a six day whirl wind tour that includes Kansas City, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, & San Diego with five of HarperTeen’s top young adult authors. When I caught up with the tour at Borders in Dallas, Texas, the participants for this stop were Kim Harrison (EARLY TO DEATH, EARLY TO RISE), Ellen Schreiber (VAMPIRE KISSES 7; LOVE BITES), Aprilynne Pike (SPELLS), and Kimberley Derting (THE BODY FINDER).  Kelley Armstrong (THE RECKONING) would trade off with Aprilynne Pike starting in Houston.  For at least three of these ladies, it was day three out of the six in the non-stop tour, yet they all greeted their fans with energy and enthusiasm. The evening started with all four ladies perched upon their signing table, giving short introductions of themselves and their books, followed by a Q&A session.  Those in attendance got to find out a little about their favorite authors.  Such fun facts were that Aprilynne was the only one of the four that actually went to school to be a writer but she felt she learned just as much working in critique groups and reading.  Ellen’s biggest…

May 2009 On Sale: May 5, 2009 496 pages ISBN: 0451462718 EAN: 9780451462718 Hardcover $24.95 Add to Wish List Science Fiction Buy at Amazon.com Flood by Stephen Baxter The “deeply scary”(BBC Focus) new novel from a national bestselling and critically acclaimed author. Four hostages are rescued from a group of religious extremists in Barcelona. After five years of being held captive together, they make a vow to always watch out for one another. But they never expected this… The world they have returned to has been transformed by water—and the water is rising. As it continues to flow from the earth’s mantle, entire countries disappear. High ground becomes a precious commodity. And finally, the dreadful truth is revealed: before fifty years have passed, there will be nowhere left to run… Previous Picks

February 2010 On Sale: January 26, 2010 304 pages ISBN: 1586487485 EAN: 9781586487485 Hardcover $25.95 Fatal System Error by Joseph Menn The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet In this disquieting cyber thriller, Joseph Menn takes readers into the murky hacker underground, traveling the globe from San Francisco to Costa Rica and London to Russia. His guides are California surfer and computer whiz Barrett Lyon and a fearless British high-tech agent. Through these heroes, Menn shows the evolution of cyber- crime from small-time thieving to sophisticated, organized gangs, who began by attacking corporate websites but increasingly steal financial data from consumers and defense secrets from governments. Using unprecedented access to Mob businesses and Russian officials, the book reveals how top criminals earned protection from the Russian government. Fatal System Error penetrates both the Russian cyber-mob and La Cosa Nostra as the two fight over the Internet’s massive spoils. The cloak-and-dagger adventure shows why cyber-crime is much worse than you thought—and why the Internet might not survive. Previous Picks Add to Wish List Thriller Techno Buy at Amazon.com