Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Fresh Pick | ‘TWAS THE NIGHT by Trish Jensen, Kate Holmes, Sandra Hill
Fresh Pick / November 30, 2010

November 2010 On Sale: November 1, 2010 Featuring: Kevin Wilder; Callie Brandt; Sam Merrick 260 pages ISBN: 1611940028 EAN: 9781611940022 Trade Size (reprint) $14.95 Add to Wish List Women’s Fiction, Romance Contemporary Buy at Amazon.com ‘Twas the Night by Trish Jensen, Kate Holmes, Sandra Hill Former title: Here Comes Santa Claus “Christmas or Bust!” The three bad-boy bachelors of Snowdon, Maine, have to make it to the church on time, or die trying. Due at a friend’s wedding on Christmas Eve, the Fearsome Threesome find themselves dashing through the snow in the goofiest bus on Earth — bright red vehicle filled with a bunch of senior citizens known as The Santa Brigade. Ho, ho, ho! Decked out in red and serving up holiday cheer to the masses, a Blue Angels pilot, a bounty hunter, and a former pro football player discover ’tis the season for folly as each trips over his heart to capture the love of the one special woman for him. And who is to say what they’ll find nestled in their beds as the stockings are stuffed and the gifts placed under the tree. Come along as the Santa Brigade serves up more than holiday cheer in…

Lauren Dane | Second Chances – and second chances…
Author Guest / November 30, 2010

I first wrote Second Chances in 2005. It was, in fact, the third book I’ve ever written. The experience was not the best for a whole host of reasons, but I learned a lot about myself during the process. About editing and standing up for myself when I felt strongly about something. It was a book I liked writing, a book I got notes about from time to time and when I got the rights back in 2007, a book I knew I’d want to revisit someday. But you know how someday can be. It seems like you just thought about it yesterday and then a year or two has passed and I saw a tweet from Angela James about how she’d been looking for BDSM erotic romance to fit in an October slot. Here I had this book, finished but in need of some revisions and I thought perhaps it was time to drag it out and give it a once over. Angie had been my editor before, in fact, she’s been my editor longer than I’ve worked with anyone else in publishing, how cool is that? Anyway, that does not mean she gives me any free passes! She’s…

Joel Goldman | Welcome to KANSAS CITY
Author Guest / November 29, 2010

The crime scene is more than the chalk outline marking where the victim falls. It’s the world surrounding that pale silhouette, spreading out in uneven ripples from the perimeter cordoned off with yellow tape to the metes and bounds of the jurisdiction that investigates and prosecutes the offense to the ill-defined society that wittingly or not harbors a killer in its midst. The place where these overlapping scenes congeal and conspire is as alive and organic as any flesh and blood character. It makes and breaks promises, rewards strength and punishes weakness. It fills hearts with hope and drains them without a backward glance. Done right, place becomes a central character, casting heroes and villains against a geographic backdrop, driving the action as surely as any twitchy trigger finger. Los Angeles has been immortalized as a place character by authors from Raymond Chandler to Michael Connelly. Dennis Lehane created domineering characters in the Points and the Flats of Boston while Elmore Leonard gave Detroit a singular pulse. George Pelecanos made real Washington, D.C.’s struggle to provide justice for all. New York’s literary parents are legion and legendary. Fictional places are no less powerful characters as Scott Turow and Nancy Pickard…

Sara Reyes | Make Your Holiday Present a Memory…
Author Guest , Saturdays with Sara / November 28, 2010

Holiday season always makes me think about the best times I had, the memories last, hopefully for a lifetime. I surely don’t remember very many toys I received as a child, maybe I didn’t get any? Except the game of Life from my uncle when I really wanted a Barbie doll. I never did get Barbie but I did play Life for many years through my teens. Maybe my uncle made the best choice. I remember my mother was so sad that as the oldest I let my disappointment show. It did teach me something, to never expect something as a gift, that being a role model had its downside, and to always accept graciously. I think I was about 10 that Christmas, and both my mother and uncle have passed on, but their Christmas memory lingers as long as I live and can tell the story. This year my family decided to forgo presents at Christmas but instead go on a family vacation together. It is our first family vacation in eight years and I blame Harry Potter. The opening of the Harry Potter park in Orlando pushed each of us, except my husband who is not a HP…

Fresh Pick | DATING MR. DECEMBER by Phillipa Ashley
Fresh Pick / November 28, 2010

November 2010 On Sale: November 1, 2010 Featuring: Emma Tremayne 288 pages ISBN: 1402241429 EAN: 9781402241420 Paperback $9.99 Add to Wish List Romance Contemporary Buy at Amazon.com Dating Mr. December by Phillipa Ashley You don’t have to take your clothes off, but it certainly helps… When a nice girl asks twelve men to get naked, it’s sure to cause a scandal… Emma Tremayne leaves her high-powered PR job and moves to the Lake District looking for peace, quiet-and celibacy. So perhaps it’s not the best idea when, in the spirit of “community-mindedness,” she agrees to help the local mountain rescue team fund raise by putting together a “tasteful” nude calendar. Especially since quite a lot of the community seems to mind what she’s up to-including the tall, dark and handsome Mr. December, Will Tennant, who appears to have gotten the wrong impression about Emma’s intentions. So how does she convince him that he’s more than just the flavor of the month? Previous Picks

Fresh Pick | EGGSECUTIVE ORDERS by Julie Hyzy
Fresh Pick / November 27, 2010

White House Chef Mystery #3 January 2010 On Sale: January 5, 2010 Featuring: Olivia Paras 352 pages ISBN: 0425232034 EAN: 9780425232033 Paperback $7.99 Add to Wish List Mystery Cozy, Mystery Amateur Sleuth Buy at Amazon.com Eggsecutive Orders by Julie Hyzy The third installment in the exciting and award winning series featuring Olivia Paras, an assistant chef for the White House. Chef Olivia Paras has too many eggs in one basket-and is feeling like a basket-case… When NSA big shot Carl Minkus dies right after eating the dinner Olivia Paras’s staff had prepared, all forks point to them. Now the Secret Service is picking apart the kitchen-and scrutinizing the staff’s every move. The timing couldn’t be worse with the White House Lawn Easter Egg Roll to prep for without access to a kitchen. Olivia must find the real culprit-before she cracks under pressure. An entertaining, well-written mystery with fascinating characters and a satisfying conclusion. Previous Picks

Bonnie Hearn Hill | Kill your darlings? Okay, but how?
Author Guest / November 27, 2010

Fiction writers always hear that we should “kill your darlings.” William Faulkner is the first credited with this excellent advice, and it has been repeated by many other authors, including Stephen King. I’ve always nodded when I heard it, and I’ve lost count of how many times I repeated it to my students.  But after writing six thrillers and three young adult Star Crossed novels, not to mention mentoring many authors, I finally had to  ask myself, “Which darlings?” Here are the ones I believe you should murder first. The Researchitis Darling. How nice for you. You’ve spent a year researching a topic, and you want to dump it all on your reader from Page 1. I can so relate. Thanks to my Cosmopolitan astrologer friend, Hazel Dixon-Cooper, I researched every aspect of astrology in order to write the Star Crossed Series. As a Gemini ruled by Mercury, I got kind of obsessed by where one’s Mercury was located, and what that meant. Mercury in Pisces? Less forthcoming. In Aries? A communication champion who blows rules out the window. In Taurus? Even more controlling. But—and this is a big but—my readers were still working on their Sun signs. They weren’t…

Cindy Spencer Pape | Detroit is Fae City…
Author Guest / November 26, 2010

When people think about settings for romance, Detroit is one of the last cities to come to mind. My hometown has a rough reputation, and much of it is earned. When I was dreaming up my Urban Arcana series of paranormal romances, though, I never thought twice about using Detroit as the home for elves, witches, werewolves and more. So why is the Motor City such a perfect backdrop? Metropolitan Detroit’s over 300 year history is rich with industrial success, making it the home of numerous immigrant groups. That diversity could easily include other species. Who’d notice werewolves in Hamtramck (eastern European enclave), djinn in Dearborn (large Middle Eastern populace), or Fae in Corktown? The city is built over salt mines, and salt figures frequently in legend and myth. Now that most of the industry has left, there’s an air of gritty decay. All the abandoned factories full of rusting iron lend ideal settings for supernatural activities. Furthermore police and other city civil servants, understaffed due to budget constraints, often adopt a pragmatic “not my problem” attitude. As long as nobody’s getting hurt, it’s a whole lot easier to look the other way. Why worry about some guy with pointy…

Fresh Pick | COOK THE BOOKS by Susan Conant, Jessica Conant-Park
Fresh Pick / November 26, 2010

Gourmet Girl Mystery #5 March 2010 On Sale: March 2, 2010 Featuring: Chloe Carter 256 pages ISBN: 0425232468 EAN: 9780425232460 Hardcover $23.95 Add to Wish List Mystery Amateur Sleuth, Mystery Culinary Buy at Amazon.com Cook The Books by Susan Conant, Jessica Conant-Park Sure to satisfy an appetite for crime…with tasty recipes. This Gourmet Girl has to take the heat-because she just can’t get away from the kitchen. Chloe Carter desperately needs a job, so she takes one assisting a cookbook writer. Unfortunately it stirs up painful memories of her ex-boyfriend Josh, who left her for Hawaii. While compiling a book of recipes from Boston’s top chefs, she comes in contact with one of Josh’s friends, Digger. Chloe manages to stay cool until later she finds Digger’s apartment charred-with Digger in it. Not believing that an expert chef would die from a grease fire, she sets about looking for Digger’s killer. But things get sticky when the tragedy brings Josh back to Boston-and back into Chloe’s life. Recipe for murder is never more delicious! Previous Picks

Fresh Pick | A CATERED THANKSGIVING by Isis Crawford
Fresh Pick / November 25, 2010

Catered Mystery #7 November 2010 On Sale: October 26, 2010 Featuring: Bernie Simmons; Libby Simmons 304 pages ISBN: 0758247389 EAN: 9780758247384 Paperback $22.00 Add to Wish List Mystery Cozy, Mystery Woman Sleuth, Mystery Culinary Buy at Amazon.com A Catered Thanksgiving by Isis Crawford A Thanksgiving dinner goes awry thanks to a killer who’s hiding a cornucopia of secrets Sisters Bernie and Libby Simmons have handled plenty of catering challenges with grace and aplomb. But this Thanksgiving, they’re cooking a feast for felons… Whipping up Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings can be stressful for anyone, but that goes double for the Field family. They know that every family get-together has to be picture perfect, or they risk getting cut out of dominating patriarch Monty’s extremely lucrative will. That’s where A Little Taste of Heaven, Bernie and Libby’s catering company, comes in. Surely with their lumpless mashed potatoes and to-die-for gravy on the table, even the super-dysfunctional Fields can pretend to get along for one meal. But no one can dress up the disaster when the cover-worthy turkey goes boom right in Monty Field’s scowling face, sending him to that great dining room in the sky. With every member of the…