January 2011 On Sale: January 1, 2011 Featuring: Lizzie Bennet; Charles Bingley; Will Darcy 288 pages ISBN: 0545240778 EAN: 9780545240772 Hardcover $17.99  Add to Wish List Young Adult Contemporary Buy at Amazon.com Welcome spring and thoughts of PROM! Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg After winter break, the girls at the very prestigious Longbourn Academy become obsessed with the prom. Lizzie Bennet, who attends Longbourn on a scholarship, isn’t interested in designer dresses and expensive shoes, but her best friend, Jane, might be — especially now that Charles Bingley is back from a semester in London. Lizzie is happy about her friend’s burgeoning romance but less than impressed by Charles’s friend, Will Darcy, who’s snobby and pretentious. Darcy doesn’t seem to like Lizzie either, but she assumes it’s because her family doesn’t have money. Clearly, Will Darcy is a pompous jerk — so why does Lizzie find herself drawn to him anyway? Will Lizzie’s pride and Will’s prejudice keep them apart? Or are they a prom couple in the making? Whatever the result, Elizabeth Eulberg, author of The Lonely Hearts Club, has concocted a very funny, completely stylish delight for any season — prom or otherwise. This hysterical rendition of…

2011 has been a year of changes for me. I realize we’re not very far in, but I’ve had a rollercoaster ride already! I didn’t set any resolutions and tried to set goals instead. Am I moving towards my goals? HMMM…good question. Professionally I would say yes. I got a promotion and going back to school for a few business courses so that I can be better at my job, and earn a professional childcare director certificate. I’ve increased enrollment at my center, but still have a way to go. So yes, I think things are on track professionally. (Especially if I learn to conquer my new version of word!) Personally my goals are not quite within sight, but I’m confident I’ll get back on track! I want to do some things to my house, and I’m determined that even though I’ve said that for years, this is the year! I’d like to lose some weight, and It’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog. I had a blog written, but because I have a new computer with a new version of Word (that I’ve not a clue how to use) I lost the whole thing! I wish…

With the hustle and bustle of the holiday season comes an endless To Do list for moms. Whether it’s staying up late to bake cupcakes for a class party or being volunteered to sew buttons on costumes for a play, the stress of the season gets to the best of us. Throw in a couple of last minute school assignments for the kids like book reports and science projects, it’s a wonder we manage to enjoy the spirit of the season at all. Blended families are very difficult to navigate especially when it comes to the role of mothering. Whether it’s the lingering aftereffects of the divorce or the deep resentment over the loss of control in their children’s lives, many women struggle to find an acceptable balance. There is no perfect answer due to the many challenges associated with moving on. However, the way in which these obstacles are met will ultimately determine the emotional well-being of the family. This month’s Jen’s Jewels Deborah Bedford addresses this very topic in her latest release, HIS OTHER WIFE. It’s the emotionally charged story of two women who love the same man yet desperately want what’s best for one teenage boy. When…

My book, AN UNLIKELY COUNTESS, came out at the beginning of the month and it’s great fun to see it do so well. It will be #17 on the New York Times bestseller list on Sunday, and the Sunday after, it’ll be #13. Onward and upward! The reviews have been mostly great, too, both from review sites and from individual readers. Some quibbles have surprised me, however. I want to make clear that I never resent negative opinions about my books. Of course I want readers to love them, but I know I can’t please everyone, and I respect differing opinions. In the end, a novel is a creation of both the author and the reader, and each reading is valid. But all the same, I sometimes don’t quite get the problems a reader expresses. A few readers find Prudence a snob. For those who haven’t read AN UNLIKELY COUNTESS, at the beginning Prudence Youlgrave has come down in the world and is living in a slum on very limited money. You can read the second excerpt to see what I mean. (I also have the opening scene here, of you want to read both.) As you’ll see, she doesn’t…

February 2010 On Sale: February 1, 2010 Featuring: Joyce Conway; Justin Hitchcock 384 pages ISBN: 0061706248 EAN: 9780061706240 Paperback (reprint) $14.99  Add to Wish List Women’s Fiction, Contemporary Buy at Amazon.com Emotional and touching, filled with second chances Thanks For The Memories by Cecelia Ahern How is it possible to know someone you’ve never met? With her marriage already in pieces, Joyce Conway nearly lost everything else. But she survived the terrible accident that left her hospitalized-and now, inexplicably, she can remember faces she has never seen, cobblestone Parisian streets she’s never visited. A sudden, overwhelming sense of déjà vu has Joyce feeling as if her life is not her own. Justin Hitchcock’s decision to donate blood was the first thing to come straight from his heart in a long time. He chased his ex-wife and daughter from Chicago to London-and now, restless and lonely, he lectures to bored college students in Dublin. But everything is about to change with the arrival of a basket of muffins with a thank-you note enclosed-the first in a series of anonymous presents that will launch Justin into the heart of a mystery…and alter two lives forever. Excerpt Chapter One “Blood transfusion,” Dr. Fields…

I’ve been writing a long time. My first published books were historical romances. Then I wrote books for young teens and middle readers. Now I’m writing historical fiction again but this time for the inspirational market. ANGEL SISTER is my twenty-first published book. Several more of my books are in the publishing pipeline and then, I regret to say, some of my manuscripts are stuck away on my “nobody loved the stories but me” shelf. That’s a lot of story ideas. At times I worry my story well might run dry. Especially when I need a new idea and I’m stumbling around in the dark of my mind just hoping I’ll bump into something to light up my imagination. Sometimes that new idea was right in front of my eyes all the time. A part of my life. That’s what happened with ANGEL SISTER. I’d written some stories with a setting based on my growing up years and had fun with that. So when I started trying to grab hold of a new idea, I recalled all my mother’s stories about growing up during the Great Depression. Wonderful stories of going to school barefoot, roller-skating on the highway, and taffy…

March 2011 On Sale: March 1, 2011 Featuring: Noel; Lisa; Frankie 384 pages ISBN: 0307273563 EAN: 9780307273567 Hardcover $26.99 Add to Wish List Fiction, Contemporary Buy at Amazon.com Another Irish classic Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy Maeve Binchy is back with a tale of joy, heartbreak and hope, about a motherless girl collectively raised by a close-knit Dublin community. When Noel learns that his terminally ill former flame is pregnant with his child, he agrees to take guardianship of the baby girl once she’s born. But as a single father battling demons of his own, Noel can’t do it alone. Fortunately, he has a competent, caring network of friends, family and neighbors: Lisa, his unlucky-in-love classmate, who moves in with him to help him care for little Frankie around the clock; his American cousin, Emily, always there with a pep talk; the newly retired Dr. Hat, with more time on his hands than he knows what to do with; Dr. Declan and Fiona and their baby son, Frankie’s first friend; and many eager babysitters, including old friends Signora and Aidan and Frankie’s doting grandparents, Josie and Charles. But not everyone is pleased with the unconventional arrangement, especially a nosy social…

Thank you so much for inviting me to guest blog today at Fresh Fiction. St. Patrick’s Day has always been a special day in our family. My grandfather was extremely proud of his Irish heritage. His father came over from Dublin, Ireland June 19, 1871 when he was 8 years old. I recently discovered the passenger’s list on Ancestry.com and found out that he was a passenger on the ship Calabria. I wanted to add a special twist to the characters in all of my books, by using family names and my Irish heritage. The heroine in my first book, THE MARSHAL’S DESTINY, was named after my great-grandmother, Margaret Mary Flaherty. Three generations of the feisty Irish-American women in our family: Garahan, Flaherty, Daly and Purcell, with their sharp tongues, hard heads and big hearts have kept our family strong and definitely helped influence the creation of the fictional Margaret Mary Flaherty. My latest trilogy from Sourcebooks: The Secret Life of Cowboys begins with TYLER, the oldest brother’s story. I love writing trilogies and series, that way I don’t have to suffer through withdrawal when I have to say goodbye to the characters who have kept me company while I’ve…

February 2011 On Sale: January 25, 2011 Featuring: Abby Sinclair 384 pages ISBN: 1439198322 EAN: 9781439198322 Mass Market Paperback $7.99  Add to Wish List Fantasy Urban Buy at Amazon.com Humorous Urban Fantasy, with unicorn A Brush of Darkness by Allison Pang She has no idea what lurks beneath the shadows… A fun and exciting dark urban fantasy debut featuring a young woman who finds herself involved in a series of supernatural kidnappings and must work with a sexy incubus to keep the victims—and herself— from vanishing forever. Six months ago, twenty-six-year-old Abby Sinclair was struggling to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. Now, she has an enchanted iPod and a miniature unicorn living in her underwear drawer. With her lack of OtherWorldly knowledge, Abby needs all the help she can get. So when her Faery employer and some of her friends go missing, she must team up with the sexy and mysterious incubus who’s been haunting her dreams. As Abby’s sucked deeper and deeper into this dangerous world she barely knows—filled with daemons, angels, and faeries—she finds herself trapped at the center of it all. And she might not be able to escape. Enchanting, Exciting and Hilarious Debut…

One of the biggest challenges for me in writing the novels of my Messenger series is world building, mainly because I don’t. Well, I thought I didn’t. I almost always pick a real place in my very own contemporary time period in which to set my novels, paranormal or not. If I have to make up a place, I tend to base it on a real one and change the names to protect the innocent and/or guilty. That way, I don’t have to create it. I can look at maps. I can read about it. I can visit and check it out. This has, of course, occasionally backfired a little. Like the time I was shooed out of the Pocket neighborhood in Sacramento by the police. I hadn’t thought what it would look like to have someone cruising slowly up and down the residential streets of a fairly affluent neighborhood, peeking into backyards and taking pictures of the houses. Anyway all’s well that ends well, right? I didn’t even have to call anyone to go my bail. I am, surprisingly to some of those who know and I hope love me, a fairly methodical writer. I plot. I outline. But…