Hi All! Cynthia D’Alba here. Thanks to the Fresh Fiction gang for having me here today to celebrate the release of the second book in the Texas Montgomery Mavericks series, TEXAS TANGO. For the first time in my writing, I put a teenager into my story. GULP. That did certainly stretch my imagination. I have no children. I haven’t been around a teenager in a long time. Heck, I haven’t been a teenager in a long time. However, I had a lot of fun with Noah, my fourteen-year-old. TEXAS TANGO is the story of a widower Travis Montgomery (who has no children) and Caroline Graham, a transient doctor who moves around fulfilling short term contracts. Noah is her younger brother but she doesn’t really know him. She was eighteen when he was born and off at college. Their parents are Christian missionaries who have spent the majority of their time in foreign lands. Caroline was raised by her grandmother, Mamie, as was Noah. Now their primary parent figure, their grandmother Mamie, is close to death. Noah is concerned about her and what’s going to happen to him. In a nutshell, he is an angry teen. Here’s the first introduction to…

Thinking of military heroes brings to mind characters in their physical prime (who doesn’t love a sizzling six-pack?), who aren’t afraid to jump into the fray and do the right thing despite the personal cost. As a paranormal and romantic suspense author, knowing service men and women have faced things most of us have not, it’s intriguing to peek behind the curtain and explore how those experiences change their world view and personal priorities. John Noble, the hero of BULLETPROOF, is one of those dark, bad boy types. He’s a former soldier with a mysterious past. He’s sexy and scarred – inside and out. On a mission protecting an ambitious reporter working a career-defining story, John has his hands full saving Amelia Bennett from the powerful people who want her dead while plotting his escape from the shadow agency he is tired of serving. As an Army wife, military heroes are near and dear to me and they show up in nearly all of my books in one way or another. It’s not just a ploy to prove to my husband that I’ve actually listened to his many stories from training and deployments (though it certainly helps). Writing military heroes…

Are you craving a bold, handsome hero to sweep you off your feet? Or, at least take you on a delicious adventure far from the dishes and laundry? Look no further than the newly released KNIGHTS OF VALOR box set, four full-length medieval romance novels featuring swoon-worthy knights who will not only win the love of the feisty damsels in the stories, but will conquer readers’ hearts as well. KNIGHTS OF VALOR is available on Kindle and Nook and is priced at just $0.99 for a limited time. The novels include books by bestselling, award-winning authors Denise Domning, Catherine Kean, Eliza Knight, and Laurel O’Donnell. Also available by these four talented writers: the Daring Damsels box set, which ranked in the top five medievals on Kindle for eight weeks. $4.99 at most eBook retailers. Catherine Kean | Eliza Knight | Denise Domning | Laurel O’Donnell

Lindsay McKenna, author of DOWN RANGE, sat down with our Janene Putman recently to discuss her newest release, what it’s like creating sexy military men, and pulling stories from her friend Michael Jaco. Trained to kill, but built for love… Captain Morgan Boland is at the top of her game, as is her former lover, Navy SEAL Jake Ramsey. Then a military computer selects them to partner in a special op. The mission can’t be compromised by their personal history—and they have truckloads of it. But the Afghan assignment might provide the discipline they need to finally get it together—outside the bedroom, that is. A lot has happened over the two years since they last went their separate ways. And there’s way more to Morgan than Jake has ever given her credit for….

It’s safe to say that most if not all of my traditions revolve around my family and food. My earliest memories are of sitting in the kitchen at my grandmother’s house with my mom and her talking, laughing and eating. I like to linger at the kitchen table when I have friends and family over. There is something that just feels so right about it. I can still remember the sadness and sense of loss I felt the year my grandmother died. My mom and sisters and I helped pack up her house and we were drawn to the kitchen and her pots and pans and her cookbooks. We split the cookbooks up and I found that the cookbooks were a link to her. She’d written all sort of notes on recipes and left her own variations on pieces of paper in the books. Whenever I use one of her recipes I feel like she’s right there in the kitchen with us, giving us kisses and telling us how wonderful we are. One of those recipes is a traditional Italian Christmas cookie. They are called struffoli. They are little bits of fried dough coated in honey and sprinkles. Now my…

After publishing 43 adult contemporary romances in 10 years, the question I’ve been asked most often recently is ‘why have you ventured into the world of young adult fiction?’ One word: Twilight. I’m a voracious reader, so when the Twilight phenomenon hit a few years ago, I was curious. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I hadn’t read YA in years…yet there was something about those sparkly vamps that got me hooked all over again. For twelve months after the Twilight series, I rarely read anything other than YA. And for a reader who normally wouldn’t pick up a paranormal book, I couldn’t get enough! I devoured series by Richelle Mead, Melissa Marr, P.C. Cast, Cassandra Clare and more, and discovered fabulous authors like Jeri Smith-Ready and Amber Kizer. I became absolutely addicted to YA novels, to the point where I had to write my own! The first line for SCION OF THE SUN popped into my head when I was drifting off to sleep one day. “I always thought cults were for crazies. Until I joined one.” From there, I developed the Solar Snatcher series, which kicks off with 16 year-old Holly Burton entering C.U.L.T.,…

I’d like to thank Fresh Fiction for hosting me. Years ago, while vacationing with my family, an idea popped into my head that stayed on my mind for the remainder of the trip. I couldn’t wait to get home to write out my thoughts. The story was about a powerful family (One sister and five brothers) named The Tuckers. To the outside world they appeared perfect, but in reality they were all still hurting and devastated due to an incident that had destroyed their childhoods. I wrote the first book and had no intention of writing about them after that, but the characters continued speaking and before I realized it, I had a story for each family member. SENT FROM HEAVEN is a romantic suspense series that will consist of five books, each featuring a Tucker family member on the rocky road to finding love and healing from the past. With each story I hope you’ll laugh, cry and learn about healing and forgiveness as well as fall in love with this family. SENT FROM HEAVEN (book 1) Best-selling romance author Maya Smith’s life is far different from the characters she creates in her novels. Left to raise a baby…

DEAR READER COURSE OF ACTION was created by myself and Merline Lovelace for Harlequin Romantic Suspense. There will be three books, one coming out each year, 2013, 2014 and 2015, with connected stories (novellas). She is a sister military vet and been a long-time friend. I came up with a concept of us doing a novella each (35,000 words in length) on the black ops community. She was an Air Force Colonel and was the first woman to run an Air Force Base (and showed the boys how to do it). I was in the US Navy. I had a secret clearance and Merline a top secret clearance. Both of us dealt in the black ops of the secretive military side that civilians don’t get to see. We wanted to do a sort of show-and-tell on the different black ops communities because each is different in their own, unique way. For example, if it’s got to do with ocean, the the SEALs are called from the US Navy. There will be stories about an Air Force combat controller, US Navy SEAL, Ranger, Army Special Forces, Marine Force Recon and Delta Force. We chose to do six novellas, two stories about…