Today’s guests, Maureen Child and Kate Carlisle, both have December 2011 books from Harlequin Desire: THE TEMPORARY MRS. KING and AN INNOCENT IN PARADISE, respectively. These sensual romances with Caribbean island settings add a healthy helping of warmth to your holiday season. Maureen and Kate will each give a copy of her book to a random commenter here today. That’s two winners! Don’t forget to check back at the end of the day to see if you’ve won. And be sure to check out their Tropical Christmas Giveaway contest right here on Fresh Fiction! Judging Books by their Covers Maureen: They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but we all do it. Kate: I do. I mean, seriously. Look at these two covers for the Jane Austen classic, PERSUASION. Which one do you want to read? Maureen: The one on the right, for sure. But then, I’m a sucker for blood red lipstick. Of course, it makes me think that the book involves danger. Kate: A book cover, when it’s doing its job, should give us clues about what kind of story lies within. A great cover serves the publisher, the author, and the reader. MURDER UNDER…

You know the saying, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” It’s the ultimate optimist catch-cry. I’m an optimist myself (annoyingly so, I’m told!), which means my first reaction is “lemonade, yeah, absolutely.” But making the best of a bad situation isn’t always as easy as “making lemonade.” There are times when stuff happens that can’t just be mixed up with a bit of sugar and made palatable. If you’re in that kind of situation – and for some reason they seem to crop up more often, or maybe hurt more, as Christmas approaches – you have my sympathy. Feel free not to make lemonade, because there’s a time to wallow in lemons (a time to weep, as that famous chapter of Ecclesiastes calls it) and that’s perfectly ok. But, thank God (and I mean that), there’s also a time to laugh. I get my laughs from my husband, my kids, my friends. And from books. Not for me the gloomy or nasty story, I’m afraid. I like my fiction with only a small dose of lemon, guaranteed to end on a lemonade note. Give me a story that puts the characters in a sticky situation (not one that’s going…