Fresh Pick for Wednesday, May 21st, 2014 is BLIND FAITH by Rebecca Zanetti #RomanceWednesday Forever May 2014 On Sale: May 6, 2014 298 pages ISBN: 1455574481 EAN: 9781455574483 Kindle: B00EXTVSHI e-Book Add to Wish List Romance Suspense Buy A Copy Amazon.com Kindle BN.com Powell’s Books Indiebound Blind Faith by Rebecca Zanetti A betrayal he couldn’t forget . . . For Nate Dean, love is a four-letter word. As part of a secret black-ops military unit, he and his brothers were genetically engineered by the government to be ruthless soldiers with an expiration date. They were loyal only to one another . . . until Nate laid eyes on the woman who stole his heart and blew his world apart. Now, years later, his family is still paying the price for his mistake. But as time runs out, there’s only one person who can save his family: the very woman Nate swore he’d never trust again. A love she couldn’t deny . . . The moment Audrey Madison spies Nate across a crowded ballroom, she can barely breathe. He’s just as undeniably sexy as she remembers, yet there’s an edge to him now that’s as irresistible as it is dangerous. When…

Here’s a question that I have been asked a lot: Ashley is a very determined woman with a solid career. Did you face some of the same issues in your career? What advice would you give to women that feel the need to be it all? (Wife, mother, and career driven) Yes, there is a very real correlation between Ashley and me. I loved working and I loved being a wife and mother. I didn’t want to live in the shadow of my husband and I love him dearly. I wanted something for me, not for my kids, not for my husband. I wanted to maintain my own identity. I think many career women and mothers feel similar feelings. We love our families, spouses, significant others, our pets; we’re thankful and blessed for their presence in our lives, yet we want a piece of the world that still reflects us. This is the conflict in The Reluctant First Lady. It’s how one woman works through her dilemma. Women have asked me the second part of this question many times. How did I balance it all? How did I do it all? The truth is somewhere between the lines. I’ve managed…

The sensational third novel in Joan Johnston’s Western Romance Mail-order Bride series is part of her Bitter Creek series. A DESPERATE DECEPTION THE PROMISE OF FOREVER When Karl Norwood’s mail-order bride meets an untimely demise on the way to the Montana Territory, Hetty Wentworth steps in to take her place. Hetty has no idea how she’s going to pretend to be all the things she isn’t—including the mother of two kids. She only knows her deception is necessary if she’s going to save two orphans from the awful fate she suffered as a child. Karl smells a rat when a much younger woman than he was expecting arrives with two children who look nothing like her. But his mail-order bride is so beautiful, he doesn’t object—until he realizes that his charming new wife has been lying . . . about everything. Can a woman forced to keep secrets and a man hindered by distrust ever hope to find happily ever after in each other’s arms? Bitter Creek series Texas Bride Bitter Creek #1 Wyoming Bride Bitter Creek #2 Montana Bride Bitter Creek #3

I tell people that THE ADVOCATE feels like the book I was created to write; that it brings the three strands of my life together—pastor, lawyer and writer. (And reawakens a fourth—history teacher). Perhaps that’s because the idea for the book came from several different directions all at once. The first strand came when I was wearing my lawyer hat and teaching advocacy at Regent Law School. We were studying the great trials in the history of the world and I was ranking them in order of importance. The first, at least in my mind, was eons ahead of the others: the trial of Christ. What could compare to that? The redemption of all mankind hinged on the outcome. But the second was less clear. The Scopes monkey trial came to mind, unfortunately clearing the way for evolution to be taught in our schools. Or, on the more spiritual side, what about the trial of Martin Luther before the Diet at Worms? Then again, a few of my own cases seemed pretty significant. I finally settled on a trial that not many people think about—the trial of the Apostle Paul in front of Nero. It seemed to me that the…

First of all, I don’t tell people what I do for a living, mostly because I don’t like talking about myself. I don’t even tell my neighbors, and I’m pretty sure a lot of them think I’m unemployed. At least one, though, thinks I’m a drug dealer because he, in a moment when his own dealer’s supply ran low, inquired if I’d be willing to sell him a dime-bag of marijuana. I declined the transaction. My morning begins the same as most people’s. My wonderful, beautiful wife gently wakes me up at 8:15AM when she goes to work, and then my infant son ensures that I stay awake by screaming at the top of his lungs from the room next door. As I swing my legs off the bed, I look at the mirror, where, taped to the upper right corner, is a hand written sign that says, “You wanted kids, too.” After I get up, my son and I play for a few hours in the living room. In that time, I’m usually vomited upon at least once. There’s also a fair chance that I will be kicked in the wedding vegetables as well. My friends with older children…

When I sat down to write HELL ON WHEELS, the debut title in my Black Knights Inc. series, I knew there would be a long list of spec-ops/custom motorcycle mash-up books to follow. Why? Well, because like many romance readers, I absolutely lurv a good series. I delight in watching secondary and tertiary characters develop from one book to the next. I adore revisiting previous heroes and heroines and seeing where they are in their life’s journey. I yearn to return to familiar places and reconnect with familiar faces. Basically, I want to read more and more and more about these characters who have come to feel like… well… family. And in honor of the release of HELL FOR LEATHER, book number six in the Black Knights‘ continuing saga, I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite series. Yay! Jaci Burton’s Play-by-Play Series THE PERFECT PLAY The last thing event planner Tara Lincoln needs is the jet-set lifestyle of a football pro like Mick Riley; even though their steamy and passionate one-night stand proved that Mick is an all-star—both on the field and in the bedroom.Tara played the game of love once and lost big, and she doesn’t…

Every moment we can’t be sure the next moment will come. Life is a battlefield no one survives; death is the midnight prowler who gets us all in the end. So we love suspense literature because it reminds us of this while reassuring us it’s happening to someone else. The same reason we slow down to see the bodies of a car wreck: horror and obsession. Trying to understand death. Hoping, perhaps, for a clue that something survives. And so we love risk. We climb cliffs and jump from airplanes, drive too fast, live as dangerously as we dare, and sometimes kill ourselves in the process. Why? Because risk and suspense are living deeply. At times when my own life has been most in danger, although terrifying, are among those I’ve lived most deeply and instinctively. Danger brought me back to my primeval bones, an atavistic hunger to survive. Suspense reminds us of our mortality and deepens our hunger for life. And a good novel can put us so deeply into its suspense that we become silent characters – terrified, loving, joyous or sad – just like the others. Begging for one outcome yet dreading the worst. As if it…

Readers may know, years back, I cut my teeth co-authoring several thrillers with James Patterson. Judge and Jury, Lifeguard, the Jester, and the early Women’s Murder Cub series. I always refer to it as a combination MFA/MBA in Thriller Management.   That was many books ago. I just published my eighth solo thriller, Everything to Lose, the story of a determined mother who is lured to do something wrong, indeed criminal, to protect her challenged son, who has Asperger’s syndrome, and then her world caves in.   I never set out to write Patterson-clones. What I have always wanted to do was to keep the pages turning. And to write twisty, plot-centric thrillers with lots of reversals and surprises, but about recognizable, every day heros and families with emotionally resonant endings. My first book, The Blue Zone, was probably pretty Pattersonian at that. With a hundred chapters, lots of unexpected twists and turns; lots of italics and exclamations. Then I was pushed to write frenetic thrillers like 15 Seconds and No Way Back, putting likeable people in situations that spiral out of control from the opening pages. This book I just took my time and let the reader live in…

Good guys chasing bad guys. Bad guys chasing good guys. They’re all armed with pistols, rifles and knives while sporting devil-may-care attitudes. Throw in the ladies doing their own chasing and saving lives while wearing (attractive) skirts and matching (lethal) accessories. Mix all this with lawless Delaware Bend, Texas, and even more lawless Indian Territory in the 1880s and you’ve got suspense, mystery and heightened emotions. Romance ups the ante. LADY GONE BAD LADY GONE BAD In LADY GONE BAD, a saloon singer called Lady consorts with outlaws to get a lead on her parents’ murderers. Rafe, Deputy U.S. Marshal, arrives in town to arrest her. Instead, his name ends up on a Wanted Poster. Together, they escape into Indian Territory to clear their names and hunt down murderous desperados. ANGEL GONE BAD ANGEL GONE BAD In ANGEL GONE BAD, Angel is a dime novelist determined to save a friend kidnapped by outlaws. She enlists the help of Rune, an Anti-Horse Thief Detective (http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/A/AN012.html), hot on the trail of a notorious bandit. They brave the wilds of Indian Territory and an outlaw gang’s hideout for justice. BRIDE GONE BAD BRIDE GONE BAD In BRIDE GONE BAD, Tempest is after her…

Fresh Pick for Sunday, May 18th, 2014 is LABYRINTH OF STARS by Marjorie M. Liu #Free4All Sunday A Hunter Kiss Novel Ace March 2014 On Sale: February 25, 2014 304 pages ISBN: 1937007855 EAN: 9781937007850 Kindle: B009RYL1CQ Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List Fantasy Urban Buy A Copy Amazon.com Kindle BN.com Powell’s Books Indiebound Labyrinth of Stars by Marjorie M. Liu Tattoos with hearts, minds, and dreams. Created to be the armor that protects my body, these obsidian shadows come alive at night—demons made flesh. After the Aetar nearly kill Maxine’s unborn child, and a betrayal within her own ranks leaves Maxine’s husband, Grant, poisoned and dying, Maxine is forced to attack a race of beings that possesses almost unlimited power. Doing so will require she make a deal with the devil—the devil that lives inside her—risking both her sanity and her soul as she slowly transforms into something more than human. But even that might not be enough to save Grant, because the very thing that Maxine is becoming is destined to destroy the world. A thrilling ride Previous Picks