Hello Fresh Fiction Fans! My name is Wendy S. Marcus. Thank you for joining me at the 19th stop on my blog tour to promote my debut Harlequin Medical Romance, WHEN ONE NIGHT ISN’T ENOUGH. Today I’ve chosen to share with you a day in the life of a crazily obsessed, easily distracted, newly published author. (That would be me.) 7:15 a.m. I roll out of bed, make sure my youngest daughter is up and getting ready for school, and head downstairs to turn on my computer. Then I check my personal and professional e-mail accounts, answer what needs answering and delete what needs deleting. 7:30 a.m. I hand my daughter her lunch, kiss her good bye, and, as she walks to the bus, yell motherly things like “Work hard.” “I love you.” And “Don’t walk through the grass. Your feet are going to get all wet.” (She doesn’t listen – at least to the walking through the grass part.) 7:35 a.m. The crazy obsession begins. You see, to a new author, (well, to me in particular) it’s all about the numbers. Sales rankings on Amazon. Likes on Facebook. Followers on Twitter. Friends on Goodreads. Stars on reviews. Words written…

The weather is hot. . . and reading one of these erotic tales could make it even hotter. WOLF TALES 10, Kate Douglas (Aphrodisia, July 2011 $14.00) Aphrodisia’s bestselling author does it again, with another sizzling, no-holds-barred installment in the unstoppable Wolf Tales series. NEED ME, Shelli Stevens (Aphrodisia, July 2011, $14.00) From the author of Take Me comes a sexy new futuristic romance that pits seductive soldier on a mission against the man guarding the very thing she needs. LEGALLY HOT, Lora Leigh, Cheyenne McCray and Red Garnier (St. Martins Press, July 2011, $7.99) Three of today’s top writers of romantic suspense want you to meet a few good men who are so hot, it’s criminal. HOPE’S KISS, Angela Knight (Red Sage, July 2011) Detective Hope Barton finds the man she loves bloody, naked and locked in a cage. When he lunges for her throat, she realizes Mark Wilder has become a vampire. Worse, he’s dying of the Thirst: a raging need for blood. After Hope is locked in with Mark, she must use all her sensual skills to reawaken the man inside the beast. Only then can they defeat the master vampire determined to make Mark his partner…

September 2010 On Sale: September 18, 2010 256 pages ISBN: 1440503257 EAN: 9781440503252 Hardcover $19.95  Add to Wish List Cookbooks Buy at Amazon.com Pick something particularly tasty. Maybe, say, a pumpkin pastie The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by Dinah Bucholz More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Wizards and Non-Wizards Alike Bangers and mash with Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the Hogwarts dining hall. A proper cuppa tea and rock cakes in Hagrid’s hut. Cauldron cakes and pumpkin juice on the Hogwarts Express. With this cookbook, dining a la Hogwarts is as easy as Banoffi Pie! With more than 150 easy-to-make recipes, tips, and techniques, you can indulge in spellbindingly delicious meals drawn straight from the pages of your favorite Potter stories, such as: Treacle Tart—Harry’s favorite dessert Molly’s Meat Pies—Mrs. Weasley’s classic dish Kreacher’s French Onion Soup Pumpkin Pasties—a staple on the Hogwarts Express cart With a dash of magic and a drop of creativity, you’ll conjure up the entrees, desserts, snacks, and drinks you need to transform ordinary Muggle meals into magickal culinary masterpieces, sure make even Mrs. Weasley proud! Previous Picks

I went on a mini-book tour last month, visiting middle school classrooms to talk about my new book, being an author, and writing as a hobby and career.  Sure, I am there to promote my books, but more importantly, at least to me as an author of middle grade fiction, I get to hear their stories.  I find that strange, wonderful, awkward, exciting time of life I call tweenagehood endlessly fascinating and inevitably complicated.  Middle graders hover uncertainly between childhood and becoming a young adult, and it ain’t easy! I think back to my own years as a tweenager, I have such clear memories of sixth and seventh grades, and I believe I became me during those years.  I decided I was good at English and bad at math.  That I wasn’t pretty, but I could be smart.  I decided I would be funny, and that I would develop a signature that was totally illegible and therefore exotic and mysterious.  Adult.  I decided I was not a patient person.   All those choices, that self-defining that went on in middle school, charted my course in high school, college, and beyond.  I avoided taking challenging math and science classes, felt sure I…

Take a vacation from the everyday, with one of these new paranormal titles coming out this month. NIGHT VEIL, Yasmine Galenorn (Berkley, July 2011, $7.99, Indigo Court) Cicely Waters had always thought she was simply one of the magic-born- a witch who can control the wind. Recently she’s also discovered she’s also one of the shifting Fae. Now she must perfect her gift. Cicely and her friends may have escaped from Myst and her Shadow Hunters, but Myst has managed to capture the Fae Prince who holds Cicely’s heart. PRIDE MATES, Jennifer Ashley (Berkley, July 2011, $7.99) Like most Shifters, Liam Morrissey has learned that trusting humans leads to no good. But when beautiful attorney Kim Fraser enters Shiftertown alone in order to prove her client’s innocence, Liam’s alpha nature leaves him no choice but to offer his protection. BLOODLUST, Michelle Rowen (Berkley, $7.99, Nightshade) Jillian Conrad’s blood has killed the vampire king. Now an enemy to all vampires, she is targeted for elimination. So is the infant daughter of the dead king. If Jillian doesn’t stand in the way of her death, then everyone, living or dead, is in great peril. SKIN DIVE, Ava Gray (Berkley Sensation, July 2011,…

Twenty five years ago I started my first novel, MAGNIFICENT PASSAGE, a sexy western romance set in the eighteen-sixties.  Today the book would be considered an old-fashioned Bodice Ripper–a name derived from the sensuous covers revealing the heroine’s, half-exposed heaving bosoms. In the eighties and before, the romance genre was wide open.  There were no taboos, nothing was considered politically incorrect.  The hero was all-man and the heroine was pretty much at his mercy. Women got spanked, men pushed seduction to near-rape limits.  Back in those days, men were men, and women knew it.  Today’s equal-opportunity women often disapprove, but Lord those books were fun. I wouldn’t write this book today.  Male, female roles have changed drastically since MAGNIFICENT PASSAGE was published in 1988.  In the nineties I wrote mostly historical romances set in Regency England, far tamer faire. Currently, I’m writing Contemporary Romantic Suspense.  My Raines Brothers Trilogy, AGAINST THE WIND, AGAINST THE FIRE, and AGAINST THE LAW, came out January, February, March, and AGAINST THE STORM will be out the end of October. But western romances like MAGNIFICENT PASSAGE were all the rage back in the eighties.  Having come from a family that included a grandmother who was…

I’m delighted to be here at Fresh Fiction today – thank you for inviting me! If you could trade places with any of your characters in JUST ONE SEASON IN LONDON, which would it be – and why? What a fun question to think about! I’ve had quite a tough time answering it, because all of my characters are like me in one way or another – they all have pieces of me in their makeup. But telling you the ways that my characters resemble me isn’t really answering the question, is it? So if I had to pick one character from JUST ONE SEASON IN LONDON that I’d like to swap dancing slippers with, it would be Sophie Ryecroft – and not just because she dances divinely and I don’t. Sophie is very young, a bit naïve, and gorgeous. But the part of her I like best is her pragmatism. She’s extraordinarily practical and clear-sighted. Even though nobody’s told her just how badly off the Ryecroft family really is, she knows that the situation is desperate – and she’s determined to do everything she can to make things better for her brother and their mother. She’s not vain about…

Recently, I was involved in a discussion with a group of romance authors about what we think is sexy. For instance, would you find a celebrity who wouldn’t make People Magazine’s top 100 list, but whose humor and confidence are a “ten” to be hot? You can imagine the responses some of these word mavens came up with. It was the equivalent of sitting around with a group of BFFs, tossing back margaritas and watching The Chippendales. Overall, though, the answers were shocking. Yes, that’s right. Women don’t define sexy through looks alone. Many factors come into play. On my Facebook page (yes, I’m addicted and force myself to log off long enough to reach my word count goals for the day), I held a poll, asking my friends this very question. What do you find sexy? There the answers were very far from the world of television, cover models or glossy magazine ads. These are real people sharing the down-to-earth things that turn them on. Here’s a short list: Hands Eyes Class Humor A big ole chest Wordless hugs A man who’s dirty and sweaty from a hard day’s work… Mmmm, brings to mind delicious construction workers and firemen…Oh!…

July 2011 On Sale: July 1, 2011 416 pages ISBN: 0446575178 EAN: 9780446575171 Hardcover $24.99  Add to Wish List Thriller Buy at Amazon.com Adrenaline by Jeff Abbott Sam Capra – brilliant CIA agent, loving husband, expectant father – loses everything that matters to him in a horrifying moment in London. An unknown enemy has set him up as a traitor. But that enemy has targeted the wrong man. Escaping from the CIA, Sam goes on a desperate hunt for the killer who stole his family and to save his kidnapped wife and child. But the destruction of Sam’s life was only step one in an extraordinary plot ? and now Sam Capra must become a new kind of hero. Previous Picks

I’m excited about my new Special Edition because it features a heroine who’s not a baby person.  She’s more of a “call the nanny person”.  Unfortunately, the nanny isn’t always available, which means Princess Bridget Devereaux has to deal with twin baby boys on her own.  (Muffled dirty laughter) I can laugh because I’ve been through the challenge of dealing with cranky babies.  MY OWN!  I didn’t have twins.  One at a time was more than enough.  I didn’t have a lot of experience with babies when I gave birth.  I was lucky because my mother came and stayed with me for two weeks to help me after my son was born. The day she left, he started wailing and crying and I didn’t know what to do!  Thank goodness, after a while, he calmed down and so did I.  Along the way, though, I did the jiggle dance when I held him, sang, rocked, patted and crooned, drove around in a car and put him in the magic swing that always put him to sleep. I remember the days of putting the babies down and then hearing them wake up crying five minutes later.  My mother told me it…