Fresh Pick for Tuesday, April 15th, 2014 is WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS by Jennifer Coburn #WhatsNewTuesday For my own son & daughter! Trips together build memories Sourcebooks April 2014 On Sale: April 8, 2014 400 pages ISBN: 1402288638 EAN: 9781402288630 Kindle: B00HFDVOHI Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List Non-Fiction Memoir Buy A Copy Amazon.com Kindle BN.com Powell’s Books Indiebound We’ll Always Have Paris by Jennifer Coburn A Mother/Daughter Memoir How her daughter and her passport taught Jennifer to live like there’s no tomorrow Jennifer Coburn has always been terrified of dying young. So she decides to save up and drop everything to travel with her daughter, Katie, on a whirlwind European adventure before it’s too late. Even though her husband can’t join them, even though she’s nervous about the journey, and even though she’s perfectly healthy, Jennifer is determined to jam her daughter’s mental photo album with memories—just in case. From the cafés of Paris to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Jennifer and Katie take on Europe one city at a time, united by their desire to see the world and spend precious time together. In this heartwarming generational love story, Jennifer reveals how their adventures…

On April 14, Carina Press is publishing six brand-new sports romances. Today Rebecca Crowley is here to tell us about her tennis novel, LOVE IN STRAIGHT SETS. I’ve always been a sucker for the underdog. From cursed losing streaks to teams coming back after bankruptcy to players who are too young or too old, I just don’t have it in me to cheer for the reining champion. Regan Hunter, the tennis-playing heroine of Love in Straight Sets, has been an underdog since the first day she held a racket – which was years after most pro-bound players learn the game. Throughout her career she’s been told she started too late, she has the wrong body type, and the wrong background to play tennis, and she loves nothing more than facing up to all those naysayers and telling them, “yes.” It takes a special kind of hero to see past Regan’s negativity-thickened skin, and it’s not easy for Regan to let him in. But that’s what makes the underdog my favorite – where’s the reward in winning if it was always a sure thing? Do you love an underdog too? Or is it just too hard to resist the winning appeal…

I don’t trust Happy Heroes. They have nowhere to go but down – and guess who is along for the ride? You. Nope, no Heroes brimming with positivity for me, thanks. I’ll keep my broody, slightly introverted thinkers, if you don’t mind. As an author, I have the most fun dissecting those men and figuring out what makes them tick. Very seldom do I have them completely understood when I start writing, so I think the reader takes a ride with me that is authentic. I’ve just been on the same roller coaster ride as them and gotten off with my hair blown back. I like Broody Heroes. A hero who has faced a little adversity in his life, and if he hasn’t, he’s gone out looking for it. Whether it be in law enforcement or on the sports field. Perhaps he’s gone backpacking in Peru or become a Big Brother. Either way, I like a hero who’s seen something in this life and come back from it a different man. He’s not fixed yet, but he thinks he is. He thinks he’s got everything figured out. Then I get to come in and blow that theory to Hell. Shane…

The question I get most often when folks see that like the heroine in my mysteries, I was once a reporter, is “are the stories Nichelle covers in the books based on real life?” Yes and no. I covered murders, fires, child abuse, a serial rapist, and tragedies of every shape and color in the seven years I spent as a full-time journalist before I left the newsroom for full-time motherhood. So far, the books have seen the more fun stories: an abandoned casket, a Houdini catburglar, cowboys and church ladies nearly coming to blows in a girly bar parking lot. Playing in Nichelle’s world is a blast. It has everything I miss, minus the 80-hour weeks away from my family. Bonus: fiction forensics labs can work faster and have bigger budgets, and Nichelle isn’t nearly as afraid of fictional jail as I was of the real thing. Fictional bereaved people are at least a little easier to interview, too. My favorite writing moments are those when shiny ideas pop out of nowhere and braid themselves into a plot. I only love them a little less when they come at 2 a.m. One night last week I woke with a…