My first love had the name of Jeffy Terrence. It’s the name that came on his birth certificate.  I can remember the day I got him as clearly as I can remember yesterday.  He was sitting on the end cap at Sears in his muted yellow box. He had a bald head and a promise written on the box that he smelled like baby powder. And his bottom was signed by Xavier Roberts. He was wearing a blue and white one-piece sleeper. I wanted him more than I wanted my next breath. And I got him.  I took him home and we were inseparable.  If you haven’t figured it out by now, Jeffy is a Cabbage Patch Kid, and he was mine, all mine. He had his own carrier, and I would tie it to the limb of the tree outside and spend hours swinging him back and forth.  We took long walks together and I never went to sleep without him. I can remember with great clarity the day that I took Jeffy Terrence to school in my backpack. I knew he was not supposed to be there, but I wanted to show him off. I didn’t take him…

“Miriam, you write such unusual historical romances.  Medieval Russia, medieval Ireland, Vienna, Austria, pre-American Revolution, and even a Viking romance featuring twin sisters!  Where do you get your ideas?” I’m sure every romance author has been asked where she gets the ideas for her books, but the “unusual” aspect of that question surprised me.  I don’t recall that I set out to write unusual historical romances as a goal when I began my writing career.  I believe the inspiration for my stories came simply from life’s events, a romantic spirit, and probably too much imagination for my own good! My first historical romance TWIN PASSIONS was a tribute to my Norwegian grandmother and my fascination with Norway and its history.  Nana and I visited Norway for six weeks one summer when I was an impressionable teenager to reconnect with family, and I’ve considered that stunningly beautiful country as my second homeland ever since.  I even developed a major crush on a Norwegian sailor during that trip so I guess once a romantic, always a romantic. At every turn as we travelled across the country, I envisioned Viking dragon ships cutting across the water of those deep mysterious fjords.  On every…

February 2011 On Sale: February 1, 2011 Featuring: Alex Sinclair; Lucy 320 pages ISBN: 1595545395 EAN: 9781595545398 Kindle: B004IPPE9K Trade Size $14.99  Add to Wish List Inspirational Fiction Romance, Christian Buy at Amazon.com What does a star footballer player do when he’s retired? Become a politician. Actually a funny tale of mixed goals. Save the Date by Jenny B. Jones You are cordially invited to the wedding of the year with the most unlikely bride and groom. Save the date . . . and say your prayers. When funding for Lucy’s non-profit job is pulled, she is determined to find out why. Enter Alex Sinclair, former professional football star and heir to Sinclair Enterprises-the primary donor to Lucy’s non-profit organization. Both Lucy and Alex have something the other desperately wants. Alex has it all . . . except for the votes he needs to win his bid for Congress. Despite their mutual dislike, Alex makes Lucy a proposition: pose as his fiancee in return for the money she desperately needs. Bound to a man who isn’t quite what he seems, Lucy finds her heart-and her future-on the line. Save the Date is a spunky romance that will have readers laughing…

Today’s guest is Shannon McKenna with an excerpt from her latest book: ONE WRONG MOVE. She’s also giving away a copy of one of her books: ONE WRONG MOVE, BLOOD AND FIRE, ULTIMATE WEAPON, and FADE TO MIDNIGHT. All you need to do is leave a comment. This excerpt is a bit hot “What?” he said, his voice testy. “What’s with the look?” She couldn’t think of a lie fast enough, so the truth fell right out. “I was trying to read your mind,” she said. He gave her a look from under hooded eyes, making her notice how long his eyelashes were. “What did you see?” “Nothing,” she said. “You don’t need to read my mind to know what I’m thinking. There are other indicators.” He paused. “Big ones,” he added. She stared fixedly as the apartment buildings, storefronts and schools crawled by. Bastard. Messing with her head. Heat and sweat, rising in her body. She must look like a tomato. And now they were mired in a snarl of rush hour traffic. No end in sight. “We’re going to be here for hours,” she muttered. “Get down.” He gripped her leg below the knee, pulling it so that…

June 2012 On Sale: June 17, 2012 470 pages ISBN: 1455509248 EAN: 9781455509249 Kindle: B0073J66H2 Hardcover $25.99  Add to Wish List Contemporary Women’s Fiction Buy at Amazon.com Texas Friday Night Lights Football Tumbleweeds by Leila Meacham Three friends from a small Texas town that thrives on Friday night football games try to move on after a fateful event colors each of their futures. Recently orphaned, eleven-year-old Cathy Benson feels she has been dropped into a cultural and intellectual wasteland when she is forced to move from her academically privileged life in California to the small town of Kersey in the Texas Panhandle where the sport of football reigns supreme. She is quickly taken under the unlikely wings of up-and-coming gridiron stars and classmates John Caldwell and Trey Don Hall, orphans like herself, with whom she forms a friendship and eventual love triangle that will determine the course of the rest of their lives. Taking the three friends through their growing up years until their high school graduations when several tragic events uproot and break them apart, the novel expands to follow their careers and futures until they reunite in Kersey at forty years of age. Told with all of Meacham’s…

I admit it. I have a ‘tude. More specifically, I have a stubborn streak that hates to be told no. The surest way to fire me up to do something is to tell me I can’t. I can’t have ice cream for breakfast? Pass the Ben and Jerry’s! I can’t fit my car in that parking place? Watch me! So when I started writing romances mumble mumble years ago and was told I can’t have a musician as a hero, I took offense. The prevailing theory was that readers didn’t like sports heroes (Ahem, Susan Elizabeth Phillips Chicago Stars anyone?)— nor artists, actors or musicians. Supposedly these careers had stigmas attached to them and weren’t considered hero-worthy. My inner rebel immediately shouted, “What? Musicians are sexy! Musicians are romantic! Musicians can be rough and tough guys who’ll protect the heroine from danger!” The gauntlet had been thrown down, and I set out to write a musician hero readers would swoon over. Based on reader mail I’ve received regarding CHASING A DREAM, I succeeded. In CHASING A DREAM, country musician Justin Boyd has a dream of making it big in Nashville. He’s got the winning combination of talent and tenacity. Nothing…

Play-by-Play #4 September 2012 On Sale: September 4, 2012 Featuring: Savannah Brooks; Cole Riley 320 pages ISBN: 042524783X EAN: 9780425247839 Kindle: B0072O025U Paperback $15.00  Add to Wish List Romance Erotica Sensual Buy at Amazon.com Football mania continues Playing To Win by Jaci Burton Football star Cole Riley is notorious for doing as he pleases-on the field and off. He parties hard and fights harder, but if he doesn’t clean up his act, his career is over-so Cole reluctantly agrees to work with image consultant Savannah Brooks. All the characteristics that have put this series high on my must read list. Excerpt She was beautiful, sure, with a face that would stop traffic. And the way she was put together screamed money or high society. Her hair was piled up on her head, she wore a pearl necklace that he knew damn well wasn’t fake, and he’d been with enough women to learn designers, and that little purse on the table cost a lot of money. Maybe she was related to the team owner. But he hadn’t seen anyone come within ten feet of the table in the past two hours. She was no wallflower, but she wasn’t giving off vibes…

Are You On My List? By NYT Bestseller Dianna Love People ask me all the time in interviews, “If you could meet anybody, who would it be?” They usually want a short sentence or two—a sound bite–so I never get to tell them there are four answers to that question.  For three of them, I’d have to time travel. My first person would be Leonardo Da Vinci, but not because of the recent movie and books. And honestly, not even because of his amazing paintings.  I’ve been fascinated by him since I was young, because he was an artist who was right brain/left brain, like me. Oh, I definitely admire his artistic ability in creating paintings like the Mona Lisa and Last Supper, but I would love to talk to him about his inventions and ideas such as the “Helical Air Screw”– drawings from the fifteenth-century of a rotary-wing flying apparatus.  He drew those sketches hundreds of years before the first helicopter was built in the 1940’s.   Scattered drawings have been found of his “robotic knight,” and he had an early design for an “armored car” (tank type vehicle) with light cannons on a circular platform that could rotate all…

I want to thank Fresh Fiction for the review of my latest book, TALLIE’S HERO. As a writer with only three books in print, I am flattered to be in the company of romance writers, whose work I have long enjoyed. For almost forty years I have lived with a writer, and I have come to accept that he goes into his office, sits down at the computer and within a couple of months he has another book done. Over the years I have started many books and I have even finished several of them, but when I look at my time frame I see five years for this one, three years for that one—well you get the picture.  I have learned that writing on a deadline is hard work.  Sometimes the bed doesn’t get made, or the clothes don’t make it to the drawer, or the plants get a little droopy.  All that I can justify. But now I have found another distraction—research. The three books that I have on the market are all historical romance.  They have been set in the West, but I can’t classify them as specifically Western.  One reviewer has classified them as Americana, and…

Sigma Force # July 2012 On Sale: June 26, 2012 Featuring: Tucker Wayne 448 pages ISBN: 0061784796 EAN: 9780061784798 Kindle: B0070X87PA Hardcover $27.99  Add to Wish List Thriller Buy at Amazon.com A canine helpmate, great thriller Bloodline by James Rollins The next installment of the Sigma Force series involves a genetic mystery with ties to both an ancient history and modern-day government, as only New York Times bestselling author James Rollins can tell it. A yacht bearing a young American couple is attacked by Somali pirates, leading to bloodshed and the violent kidnapping of the pregnant woman on board. To aid in her rescue from the lawless and war-torn jungles of coastal Africa, Sigma Force enlists the aid of a unique search team: former army ranger Captain Tucker Wayne and his military war dog, Kane. But what appears to be a straightforward mission turns into a fiery ambush and betrayal—for this most valuable hostage is in fact the president’s daughter. Halfway around the world, a firebombing at a fertility clinic in the United States reveals a group of women collected from around the globe and enslaved to bear children by artificial means. One woman lives long enough to give birth…