Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Lori Wilde | The Christmas Cookie Collection with Free Recipe
Author Guest / October 29, 2013

Believe it or not, Christmas is breathing down our necks and I have the good fortune to be writing a Christmas story right now. It’s always nice to be living the season you’re writing about. My current release, THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE COLLECTION, is an anthology of Christmas tales set in Twilight, Texas. In the spirit of getting ready for the holidays, I’m including one of my all time favorite cookie recipes. Growing up, these cookies were always in our holiday cookie jar. I’m not sure where my mom got the original recipe, but I make them every year. Thumbprint Cookies Ingredients: 1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour ¾ cup granulated sugar, plus ½ cup for rolling ½ cups unsweetened Dutch cocoa powder 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon salt. ½ cup butter 2 large eggs, whisked ½ cup confectioners’ sugar 1 jar maraschino cherries Directions: Stir together ¾ cup of granulated sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Add melted butter and eggs and combine. Cover and refrigerator dough for 30 minutes. While dough is chilling, preheat oven to 325 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Place confectioners’ sugar and the remaining ½…

Lisa Kessler | Howl at the Moon – Happy Halloween!
Author Guest / October 29, 2013

Hi everyone – Happy Halloween everyone! This is my favorite time of year. All the movies and decorations feature some of my favorite creatures… Vampires and Werewolves! This Halloween has been extra exciting because I also have a new release in my werewolf series, HUNTER’S MOON! The Moon Series centers around a werewolf pack in Reno, Nevada whose fate is on a collision course with the Nero Corporation, a top secret government contractor with a fanatical desire to develop the world’s most deadly assassins. Each wolf in the pack will get his own book as we unravel the mystery behind the Nero Organization, and Hunter’s Moon focuses on the Alpha’s twin brother, Aren. Aren’s mate is also the woman who shot him with a taser before shattering his ankle with a single bullet while she was working for Nero. Sasha is on the run in Hunter’s Moon and Aren is struggling between his loyalty to the Pack and his animal instincts to protect the only woman he will ever love. Since Halloween is right around the corner, how about sharing what are your favorite Paranormal romance heroes… vampires, werewolves, zombies, wizards, you name it! I can’t wait to hear! Three…

Shelley Laurenston’s November Releases
Author Guest / October 29, 2013

Although October is typically quiet for me as I work on Dragon #7, November 5th will see the release of my latest Dragon Kin novella, “A Tale of Two Dragons” and the re-release of DRAGON ACTUALLY. Now just as a reminder, the DRAGON ACTUALLY PRINT re-release is an expanded edition with the PRINT version of “A Tale of Two Dragons” included. There is no other way to get the newest novella IN PRINT unless you buy theDRAGON ACTUALLY re-release with that story included (there’s a new cool cover so you can tell the difference in the store if old copies of DRAGON ACTUALLY are lying around). But, you may say, I already have the original release of DRAGON ACTUALLYand don’t want to buy it again. No problem! You can get the e-edition of “A Tale of Two Dragons” for your reading pleasure. Please please PLEASE keep in mind that the e-version of DRAGON ACTUALLYis not a re-release, will NOT be expanded, and will NOT have the newest novella included. That e-version is put out by another publisher. So please remember that when you go a-searching in November. To help, here’s some links to send you to the right place:   DRAGON ACTUALLY re-release from Amazon. DRAGON ACTUALLY re-release from Barnes…

Lisa Van Allen | Magical Knitting
Author Guest / October 28, 2013

Dear Reader, When the weather starts to turn colder here in the Northeast, I always reach for my knitting needles or my crochet hook. I learned to knit when I was in my early twenties. I didn’t actually want to learn, but a determined aunt ignored my protests, sat me down, and said “you’re going to knit and you’re going to like it.” Sure enough, she was right! Now, a decade later, my favorite part about knitting or crocheting is giving away what I make to the people I love. I always send some prayers and good energy in the direction of the recipient. Its feels so natural to do this–I believe that handmade gifts are, in and of themselves, wishes for blessings. It wasn’t a far leap from there to, “Wouldn’t it be cool if a person could knit magic spells?” And that’s how my novel THE WISHING THREAD was born. In the story, three estranged sisters in the historic village of Tarrytown, New York, must come together to save their family legacy: a yarn shop called The Stitchery that’s rumored to be magical. There, generations of Van Ripper women, going back to the Revolutionary War, have been knitting…

William Petrocelli | Front Story, Back Story – Where do you find the Story?
Author Guest / October 28, 2013

Deciding what to write is always a problem. A blank piece of paper has traditionally been a writer’s nightmare. And a blank computer screen with all of its polite little prompts is, if anything, even more intimidating. But what to write isn’t the only problem-what not to write is even a bigger issue. Even a short thriller – say, one that begins and ends in a week – requires that the writer think carefully about what to say and what to leave out. If each minute in a story covering one-week gets a ten-word sentence, you’d have a book of over 100,000 words and an undifferentiated pile of mush. Writers typically focus on a series of key scenes and leave everything in between to be filled in by the reader’s imagination. If they need more, they usually have the characters recount earlier events and then reflect on them a bit, as they try to tie those prior events into the story. The trick is to shoe-horn the earlier events – the back story – into the story at hand without slowing down the narrative. Sometimes that’s not so easy. The main story line of THE CIRCLE OF THIRTEEN is written…

Maya Rodale | Wallflower Moments Blog Tour #3
Author Guest / October 25, 2013

That Wallflower Moment…when the hot guy doesn’t see you Why do the hot guys fall for the mean girls (like Lady Katherine Abernathy, whose acquaintance in the second stop on The Wallflower Moments Blog Tour?) Perhaps it’s because all too often they don’t even see the wallflowers. Lady Emma, heroine of THE WICKED WALLFLOWER, learns this lesson at the worst possible moment: when she’s finally waltzing with a handsome beaux and in the midst of falling in love with him when she’s accidentally interrupted by none other than the Duke of Ashbrooke, who is the most charming, scandalous, gorgeous rake the haute ton has ever seen. Check out today’s excerpt below, in which the hot guy doesn’t see my wallflower and and then join me on the rest of The Wallflower Moments Blog Tour! Excerpt: THE WICKED WALLFLOWER and the disastrous encounter with the duke Lady Emma’s perfect moment waltzing with Benedict Chase came to an abrupt end when a large, hulking masculine body stepped backwards and bumped into her. The force of their collision sent her sprawling to her knees on the parquet floor of the ballroom. Emma peered up at the horrible, inconsiderate brute and found herself looking…

Anna Sugden | Meeting Mr Devil
Author Guest / October 25, 2013

Reading books, watching programmes and going to games is a great way to learn about players. You can also get a wealth of information listening to the commentators — especially when they’re as good as the Devils’ duo – Mike ‘Doc’ Emrick and Glenn ‘Chico’ Resch – and hockey expert Stan ‘The Maven’ Fischler. But, there’s nothing like talking to the real thing. And you don’t get any more real than Mr Devil himself, Ken ‘Dano’ Daneyko. That’s why it was an enormous thrill for me, when Devils’ owner Jeff Vanderbeek arranged for me to meet with Dano. Ken Daneyko was a gritty, physical defenseman, an almost impenetrable wall in front of the Devils’ goal. One of only a handful of Devils to be on all three Stanley Cup-winning teams, Ken won the Bill Masterson Trophy in 2000 for perseverance. No greater tribute could have been paid to Ken, than having his number 3 raised to the rafters. Only the second player in Devils’ history to receive that honour. I met Ken at his gym in Hoboken — Sky Club. There he answered all my questions honestly, openly and with great humour. Whether it was about his pre-game routine, the…

Scandalous One Day Sale!
Author Spotlight / October 22, 2013

Announcing the Scandalous One Day Sale!! All of our Scandalous books are on sale TODAY ONLY for just $0.99 each. That means you can grab all of these great stories for less than $22!! To celebrate, our fabulous Scandalous Authors have put together a scavenger hunt with a Kindle Fire as the prize. Hop on over to the event page to join in the fun!! Scandalous historical doesn’t mean antiquated! Passion and romance are exciting in any era. And torrid love affairs are even more illicit when social mores forbid the entanglement. These stories are bold, sexy, and heartfelt, and can be funny, action-packed, mysterious, dramatic, but above all…scandalous.To find out more about our titles, chat with authors, participate in special events, and to find out what books you’ll be coveting next, visit the Entangled website, follow us on Twitter, like our Facebook page, and join our Book Club!!

Women’s Fiction Writing workshops
Author Guest / October 17, 2013

Best-selling women’s fiction authors Claudia Carroll, Sheila O’Flanagan and Julie Cohen will be ready to arm aspiring authors with all the best writing tips, tricks and methods on October 15th at the upcoming WritersWebTV workshop, Getting to the Heart of It: Writing Women’s Fiction. This free-to-watch-live, online workshop will cover all aspects of women’s fiction and viewers will be able to interact with those in studio to help them develop their skills. WritersWebTV has developed a world-first innovation in online education for writers by providing live-streamed interactive workshops to a global audience, featuring Irish and international best-selling writers and industry professionals. The one-day workshops are streamed live from a multi-camera broadcast studio in Dublin. Bestselling authors interact with an in-studio audience of aspiring writers, who present their work for critique. Online viewers can communicate with those in the studio using Twitter, Facebook or email. They can ask a question, take part in a workshop exercise, comment online and benefit from on-screen feedback from the authors in-studio. Led by experienced workshop facilitator Vanessa O’Loughlin, founder of writing.ie, the panel will consider the key elements of fiction writing and furnish viewers with tips, advice and actionable insights to help them improve their…