I love building relationships between main characters. In writing romance in particular, it’s a lot like playing matchmaker – creating the perfect yin for another character’s yang. “Yin and yang” is a Chinese concept that describes how seemingly opposite forces are interconnected and interdependent. Sort of how you want any exciting, romantic couple to be. In MIDNIGHT CALLER, my debut romantic thriller, FBI agent Trevor Rivette was created first. Handsome and intelligent (as most leading men are), he’s also serious, intense and hiding some pretty troubling aspects of his past. I wanted to balance him by creating a female lead with more lightness – but not too light, since after all it’s a dark thriller. Rain Sommers emerged from that. She’s a witty, somewhat eccentric radio show psychologist who has developed a following among New Orleans’s Goth community due to her famous (and many years ago, murdered) mother. See? I told you, not too light. In fact, that spooky “following” is how she becomes entangled in Trevor’s serial murder investigation. This is important, since in romantic thrillers not only do your lead characters need to have a strong physical chemistry, there also has to be a darn good reason for…

Hi everyone! It’s a real treat to be here at Fresh Fiction. Before I start, I’ve a quick question to ask you: How often do you read authors outside your own gender? Based on my formative reading material, I should by rights be the worst chauvinist author imaginable. I’m not kidding when I say the first time I read a complete book by a female writer was THE LOVELY BONES in 2005. And before that, most of the female literary characters I’d read were either barbarian queens or damsels-in-distress, women locked away in modes of male fantasy inside stories written about men, for men. I know the hero journey inside out, sideways, jutting jaw to bloody hilt. Growing up with the tales of H Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs and JRR Tolkien will do that to a boy. And it was wonderful. Wonderful…and incomplete. Then something bizarre happened. Carl Sagan’s rambling but extraordinary novel, CONTACT, introduced me to a larger-than-life heroine in a traditionally (at least in my SF) male pursuit. Ellie Arroway didn’t just dream of becoming an astronomer and discovering the secrets of the universe, she went out and made it happen. She had flaws, deep scars from…

A Blessings Novel January 2010 On Sale: January 1, 2010 Featuring: Bernadine Brown 400 pages ISBN: 0061547816 EAN: 9780061547812 Paperback $13.99 Add to Wish List Multicultural Inspirational, Fiction Buy at Amazon.com Everyone deserves a second chance, right? A Second Helping by Beverly Jenkins With the millions she received after divorcing her faithless tycoon husband, Bernadine Brown saved the historic town of Henry Adams, Kansas, from financial ruin and found loving homes for five needy children. Now there are other “projects” crying out for rescue. If ever a town institution needed rescuing, it’s the beloved Dog and Cow diner. Once it was Henry Adams’s social center—or gossip central!—now it’s in danger of becoming duct-tape central. But there are other distractions pulling Bernadine from the task at hand: a plethora of romantic entanglements, including her own with a disturbingly attractive Malachi July; a bitter young boy newly arrived in town with his widowed father; and a fugitive on the run with a six-hundred-pound pet pig that’s wanted for murder (the pig, that is). And when Bernadine’s philandering, trouble-making ex-husband rolls into town looking for a second chance, life in Henry Adams gets very interesting indeed. A novel about community with something for…

I recently had the chance to combine three of my favorite things: to meet a favorite author of mine, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, be around other avid readers, and have a fancy high tea at the famous Dallas Adolphus Hotel. It was all so nice and a luxury to be there. Some of my friends find it so fun and interesting that we thought of having a book group gathering around high tea. They can also attest to the great excitement I possessed for meeting one of my favorite authors again. We were celebrating the release of Susan’s newest book, CALL ME IRRESISTIBLE. In Susan’s new book, Meg Koranda has to go out in the big bad world and make it on her own, without the help of her famous parents (who were the stars of one of Susan’s previous books, GLITTER BABY), other siblings, or her best friends. And to make it a little harder–she is loathed by an entire town for the perceived break up of Ted Beaudine’s wedding–the town’s beloved son. One of the great things about Susan’s female characters is that they are always women who even though they hit rock bottom, do not let it stop…

The Bodyguards, No. 3 January 2006 Featuring: Ethan Garrett; Darcy Prescott 337 pages ISBN: 0312990936 EAN: 9780312990930 Paperback $6.99 Add to Wish List Romance Suspense Buy at Amazon.com Suspense adds to this second chance tale. To the Brink by Cindy Gerard When the stakes are high and the danger is real, there is only one place left to go… HER LIFE HANGS IN THE BALANCE… Working on highly sensitive diplomatic affairs, Darcy Prescott is a natural target for terrorist kidnappers. But when she’s mysteriously plucked off a street in Manila one sultry night, Darcy’s disappearance isn’t what it seems… AND THE ONLY MAN WHO CAN SAVE HER… The moment Special Forces soldier Ethan Garrett laid eyes on Darcy, he knew she was the woman he would marry—and he did. But when their marriage fell apart, Ethan never really recovered. Now a highly paid bodyguard, Ethan quickly slips back into combat mode when he learns of Darcy’s disappearance and calls in old favors to assemble a rogue rescue team…. IS THE HUSBAND SHE LEFT LONG AGO… Tracking Darcy all the way to the jungles of the Philippines, Ethan knows every move he makes could mean the difference between life and death….

We’d all like to think that given the opportunity, we could be heroic. Last spring, I had my moment. I’m sitting in the bleachers at my son’s baseball game, chatting with the grandmother of one his teammates. Betsy and I hit it off from the beginning of the season and always had laughs together watching the games with the other parents. So along comes a line-drive fly ball heading directly at us. I wrapped my arms around that older woman, pushed her head down and protected her from certain injury. Well, that’s what I should’ve done anyway… What I did do was anything but heroic. I ducked behind her and let her shield me from the ball, which then—in a moment of cosmic revenge—smacked into my leg, leaving a gigantic bruise. When I emerged from behind that lovely older woman, I was in a state of shock. All my life I’d waited for my opportunity to prove that I was made of heroic stuff. And when the moment arrived, what did I do? Duck and cover, baby! We laughed ourselves silly over the entire episode that night and many nights thereafter. To this day, Betsy sees me coming and says,…

The Rosewood #1 February 2010 On Sale: January 26, 2010 Featuring: Travis Maher; Margot Radcliffe 407 pages ISBN: 034548276X EAN: 9780345482761 Mass Market Paperback $7.99 Add to Wish List Romance Contemporary Buy at Amazon.com Sometimes going home can bring a second chance to love. Remember Me by Laura Moore A rising star in the modeling world, Margot Radcliffe hasn’t forgotten the hurt that sent her running from Rosewood, the beautiful Virginia horse farm where she was raised. Travis Maher, a ruggedly handsome rebel and gifted trainer with a hard-knock past, had once captured Margot’s heart—and then gave it back to her broken. But when Margot’s family is struck by tragedy, she is forced to set aside her skyrocketing career and return to a place she never expected to see again, where the legs everyone is interested in belong to thoroughbreds not supermodels. Now Rosewood’s success is dependent on Margot, and the only person she can count on for help is the very man who taught her the meaning of sorrow all those years ago. As Margot and Travis join forces to save Rosewood from ruin, their wild natures clash and passions surge. But will this hard-hearted horseman be able to…

Karen Harper’s historical novel, THE IRISH PRINCESS, tells the true story of a woman who belonged to the Fitzgerald family of old Ireland, a family known as “The Uncrowned Kings of Ireland.”  Gera Fitzgerald’s story of loss, love, rebellion and reconciliation, set in Ireland and Tudor England, is out in time for St. Patrick’s Day—Erin Go Bragh! And, the author says, the real-life hero is in the tradition of the swashbuckling heroes like Errol Flynn, Russell Crowe and Johnny Depp. In Search of The Irish Princess It’s a special challenge to research and bring to life a woman who actually lived, especially if most of the clues to her character must be found in her relationship with better known figures.  In Gera’s case, my search for her started with a trip I took to Ireland when I didn’t even know about her.  But I fell in love with the Kildare County countryside, the charm of Dublin and the people.  And I wondered how long the Irish love/hate relationship with the English went back. Then, in researching Queen Elizabeth I for another novel, I found that for many years she had an Irish woman in her court, a beautiful redhead, who…