Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Kimberly Kincaid| What’s In A Name?
Author Guest / July 1, 2014

Naming a book is kind of like naming a baby—you want to go with something you love, but also something that “fits” and is unique enough to be remembered. It’s a tall order! So what’s an author to do when faced with naming a whole series worth of books? Enlist help, of course. The original title of book one in the Pine Mountain series was IT’S NOT YOU (because poor Bellamy Blake hears that an awful lot). But my editor and I wanted something more romantic, so I put the question to my critique partners. They put on their thinking caps, and came up with TURN UP THE HEAT. It set the precedent for the slight foodie theme, but then I realized I had three (at the time) more books to go. Thinking caps back on. Book two is head chef Carly di Matisse’s story, and I wanted something really special. She’s one of the most central characters in the series, in charge of the kitchen and the other chefs…but not quite in charge of her heart. Carly needs a place to belong, and to discover that she can be loved by a good hero, right where she is. So…

Michele Summers | Sparks Fly in FIND MY WAY HOME
Author Guest / July 1, 2014

Thank you for having me. I’m very excited to be here and so happy that today is release day for my debut novel FIND MY WAY HOME. A contemporary story about a small town Southern gal wanting more from life and thinking if she could only hit the road for the big city, she might find what she’s looking for. *cough, cough* Well, we all know that’s not necessarily true. Bertie Anderson, wants to make it big as an interior designer. She’s three weeks away from reaching her goal when she’s given the challenge of redesigning the old Victorian in town she’s always dreamed about. But there’s a catch: if she finishes in three months, she’ll be rewarded with a big bonus. Big. Piece of cake, right? It would be if her client wasn’t bad boy Keith Morgan, retired tennis pro and single-dad-on-the-edge. Keith has moved to Harmony, NC with a huge chip on his shoulder (along with a ton of guilt) to make a better life for himself and his ten-year old daughter. What he’s not prepared for is small town, Southern quirkiness, his aunt’s ultimatum to get married in three months, and his uncontrollable attraction to his maddening…

Leslie Budewitz | Where do you get your ideas?
Author Guest / July 1, 2014

I hear tell that some authors don’t like that question. Not me! Maybe because I have a great memory—but mostly because it’s fun to retrace, for myself and readers, how disparate images and incidents came together, shifted, and took shape on the page. In CRIME RIB, second in my Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries (out July 1), the TV show Food Preneurs comes to Jewel Bay, Montana to film the 35th Annual Summer Art and Food Festival and its centerpiece, the annual steak grill-off. My protagonist, Erin Murphy, manages a grocery specializing in local foods. After disaster struck the village in DEATH AL DENTE, Erin is content this time to stay on the sidelines, keeping her focus on the Merc and scouting festival vendors for new products. When the show’s producer is killed in a hit-and-run, Festival organizers beg her to step in and help out, to give Jewel Bay a shot at national publicity. How can a local girl say no? But when the host reveals a less than camera-ready side of himself, and a contestant is attacked and killed, Erin worries that the town’s reputation as a family-friendly, food-loving, vacation village will go up in flames. And when the…

Molly McAdams | Brody Saco aka “The Top of the Triangle” in SHARING YOU
Author Guest / July 1, 2014

Oh, Brody, Brody, Brody. #Swoon (hopefully you’ll be saying the same thing when you read SHARING YOU) Brody is a character you might want to shake, but you can’t help but falling in love with. He’s been married to a woman for six years, but he fell out of love with her long before they married, and he’s more than positive that his wife never loved him. By trying to do the right thing by her, he ended up entering into a life that would slowly break him. His spirit, his fire for life, pretty much everything that makes Brody Brody has been dying since he married Olivia Reynolds. But he feels responsible for her, he feels like he owes it to her to take care of his wife who is only a shell of the girl he fell in love with in high school, and what kind of a man would he be if he left her? So every day he goes home to where his wife may or may not be, and stays on his side of the house to avoid her unless she’s having one of her psychotic fits … we’ll call them “episodes” for now ……

Carolyn Brown | Breaking The Rules With A Handsome Cowboy
Author Guest / July 1, 2014

HOW TO MARRY A COWBOY, Mason and Annie Rose’s story, is the final book in the Cowboys & Brides series that started out with BILLION DOLLAR COWBOY last year. Mason was one of four cowboys who showed up on my porch a couple of years ago. They were all sexy as the devil in blue jeans. They had hats in hands and were there to ask me to write their story. And I refused. They were all rich cowboys and I had no idea how to write about the rich and famous. But I did listen to them a little and it didn’t take long for them to convince me that they were really good old boys and that the money didn’t make them any different than the other cowboys I’d written about. I didn’t realize until I started writing HOW TO MARRY A COWBOY that Mason Harper had two personal rules and he’d never crossed the line before. The first one was to never get involved with a woman in the house, no matter who she was and the second one was to never get involved with the nanny of his twin daughters, Lily and Gabby. Then Annie Rose shows…

Sara Jane Stone | Top Ten Reasons to Make FULL EXPOSURE’s Eric Moore Your Next Book Boyfriend
Author Guest / July 1, 2014

As summer heats up (at least in my corner of the world), it is time to head to the beach, the lake, or a comfortable chair in an air conditioned room, and prepare to fall in love—with your next book boyfriend.  I would like to recommend Eric Moore, the hero of FULL EXPOSURE.  And before you ask, yes, as the author of his story, I am biased.  But trust me readers, the hero of this sexy contemporary romance is worth your time.  Let’s begin with #10 . . . 10.  Tall, dark, and handsome?  Check.  Oh, and his eyes?  A perfect blue. 9.  Drool-worthy muscles that make a girl wonder if he spends more time wielding chainsaws alongside his crew than behind a desk running his timber company?  Check.  But seriously, every romance hero out there is well built.  Time to move beyond the superficial. 8.  Loyal?  Check.  He has had the same best friend since grade school.  Eric even offered his best friend’s little sister, Georgia—who returned from her time serving her country with a wild streak a mile long—a job as his nanny.  Admittedly, he is starting to regret that decision.  Keeping his hands off the twenty-something Georgia…