Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Happy Birthday Week to The Page Girls
Author Guest / July 21, 2014

The staff here at Fresh Fiction are excited to wish The Page Girls a happy first birthday week! The Page Girls is a new online mag with an emphasis on books, cocktails, and female friendships. Each week, they publish a themed issue containing short stories, book reviews, personal and funny essays, videos, cocktail recipes, and more. Some sample issues include The Craziest Thing I Did For Love and LYLAS (Love You Like a Sister). From July 21-25, The Page Girls is celebrating its first official “birthday week,” which means a giveaway every day plus other goodies. As part of the birthday festivities, the brilliant ladies behind The Page Girls have joined us for an exclusive interview. What’s the story on how you ladies met and started your fabulous online magazine? Emily: I know April and Cecily through India, who I lived with in a small mice-infested apartment outside of Washington Square Park. Nothing bonds people like living in squalor. I met Jasmine in South Africa. We shared a bottle of red on a beach side boulder and watched the sun set. The stuff of great romances. Regardless of how we met…these ladies are my people. I love them. We all come from different backgrounds and…

Jennifer Barnhart | The Dawn of Dystopian
Author Guest / July 17, 2014

Over the weekend, The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes raked in a staggering 73 million dollars. The majority of the audience was over the age of 25. Part of this could be the nostalgic appeal of the series. The Planet of the Apes first appeared in print in 1963 and film in 1968. The audience consists of people who can remember seeing the original movie on the big screen or on TV when they were growing up. Another part of the appeal could be that the filmmakers stayed true to the themes and tones of a movie series that has spanned generations and has quite the cult following. When The Planet of the Apes was first written, the young adult genre was just gaining a foothold in the market. Novels published for young adults were still a relatively new and risky venture. Over the years, the young adult novel has evolved and grown into a large and profitable market with a readership that’s willing to wait in line for hours for a new release. There’s nothing like the excitement of getting the newest book in a long await series, and right now it’s dystopian series readers want. Here…

Rachel Harris | Celebrity Crushes…A.K.A. Fulfilling My Childhood Dream
Author Guest / July 17, 2014

When I was eight years old, I fell hard and fast for Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block. I wallpapered my bedroom with his face, slept on a pillow with his likeness, and even owned a doll—complete with unfortunate rat-tail. Many summer days were spent daydreaming that the group’s tour bus would randomly break down in front of my house, forcing them to stop inside to make a call, and he’d see my prepubescent self and fall madly in love. Any surprise I became a fiction writer?? No surprise, that dream didn’t quite pan out. One dream that did was that I became a published author. I began the journey with my young adult time-travel series and then last summer, I decided to enter the exciting world of adult romance. My debut, TASTE THE HEAT, introduced readers to the world of Magnolia Springs, a fictional small town based on the real ones I grew up in around New Orleans. That hero was a widowed father fire captain and he instantly stole my heart. Next up was a crooning restaurant owner/tatted up math nerd, and once again, my heart was a goner. When it came time to write book…

Grace Burrowes | To Say ‘I Do’, Or Not To Say ‘I Do’ — That Is The Proposal Question
Author Guest / July 17, 2014

One of the dynamics we’re told characterized Regency society was that the young ladies desperately hoped for a handsome swain to be smitten with them, and propose marriage. Marriage was the great prize, so worthy in itself, that a husband’s specific characteristics were details in comparison. To be without a fellow was a sad, sad fate, so any proposal of marriage was a form of salvation. Ha. In my recent release THE CAPTIVE, Gilly, Countess of Greendale, has had the benefit of a proposal, and it was by all lights, a “good” match. She married an earl, became the lady of grand manor, and hostess over many a glittering affair. Widowhood befalls her, and she finally, finally can order her life as she pleases. She does NOT please to remarry. Husbands are a burden, at best, and for eight years, Gilly endured a husband who fell far short of “best.” All the bended knee and moonlit waltzes in the world won’t make any hay with her. Christian has also been married, and has a child in need of a mother. When it occurs to him that Gilly could fulfill that role well, he naturally assumes becoming a duchess will be…

Kara Braden | Cool Off in Canada with THE LONGEST NIGHT
Author Guest / July 15, 2014

The middle of July in Arizona means it’s been steadily creeping over a hundred degrees for the last two months. What better time to dive into a book that’s set in the snowy winter wilderness of far northwestern Canada? While a lot of you live in areas of the country where you’ve got to shovel snow and de-ice your windshield, I assure you, after twenty-plus years of living in Arizona, I’d trade in a heartbeat! My heroine, Cecily Knight, went a step further. After getting out of the Marine Corps, she moved up to the middle of nowhere, Canada, so far outside the little town of Pinelake that she uses a small plane to do her grocery shopping. Everyday chores for her are a matter of life and death. She has to have enough fuel and firewood to stay warm through the winter. Every time she goes out, she’s surrounded by threats, from falling and breaking her ankle to encountering a bear face-to-face. Living under a constant challenge is her coping mechanism. By surviving, she proves that she’s strong enough to get through another day without anything bad happening to her or anyone else around her. It’s not a healthy…

Cynthia Sax Talks Bikers, Billionaires, and SINFUL REWARDS
Author Guest / July 15, 2014

Part one of bestselling erotic romance author Cynthia Sax’s new novella series, SINFUL REWARDS, released today, and we at Fresh Fiction had the pleasure of chatting with Cynthia about all the steamy details. Thanks for joining us, Cynthia! Was it difficult to transition out of writing The Seen Trilogy and into your new novella series, Sinful Rewards? Cynthia: It is always difficult to leave a beloved world and say goodbye to characters I adore. A couple of things helped me with this transition. We change settings, moving from LA in the The Seen Trilogy to Chicago in Sinful Rewards. I love both of these cities but they are VERY different, having a completely different feel and rhythm. I also wrote a couple of delicious SciFi erotic romances between the two series. That was a fun palette cleanser. Billionaires are a hot topic in erotic literature. As a writer, what draws you to the billionaires for your leading men? Cynthia: For me, billionaire is a short form for alpha of the business world. What this label communicates is the hero is successful and (usually) the boss. He has reached the top of his game (likely expecting that this achievement would fix…

Jenna Jaxon | And the Winner Is
Author Guest / July 15, 2014

When I began to think about the title for the third book of my medieval serial novel, Time Enough to Love, I had a rather difficult time coming up with one that continued in line with the first two novellas, BETROTHAL and BETRAYAL.  Those titles came immediately to mind because the words exactly explained the plots of the books. The final installment, however, was more complex, with more complications. So trying to find a word that began with “Be” became rather daunting. I grabbed a dictionary and went down the columns of “be” words.  It wasn’t a pleasant experience, because the longer I looked, the more I believed I would never come up with a title that would continue the alliteration of the first two and reflect the meaning of the book itself.  When I arrived at “beleaguered” it took me a second to think about it.  It was longer than the other two, it didn’t roll off the tongue as easily as they did, and it didn’t really scream romance novel.  But it did begin with “be” and the definition fit the book perfectly. Beleaguered, according to the Oxford Dictionaries, means “besieged, lay siege to, under attack,” and “hard…

S.E. Jakes | Meet Sean and Ryker from RUNNING WILD
Author Guest / July 14, 2014

Thanks so much to Fresh Fiction for hosting me on the tour for RUNNING WILD: Havoc Book 1.  This is the start of a brand new series, with different heroes for each book and HEAs at the end of each book.  Sean Rush and Ryker stole my heart a long time ago, and I’m excited for you guys to meet all of them. *** So today, I wanted to talk about Sean and Ryker from RUNNING WILD. I keep saying that Sean is Blue-ish (from FREE FALLING)…they’re still alphas but a different, quieter kind of alpha.  A complete wiseass, hopeless when it comes to understanding the basic tenets of love and romance, I feel like Sean was raised by wolves. And I mean really, he was.  He’s the son of a thief—a murderer—so Sean’s got stealing in his blood, but he doesn’t have the violence he tells us his parents had.  Yes, Sean will always fight for survival (his and those closest to him) by whatever means necessary, but even in his stealing, he only takes the more expensive cars.  He’s found a way to justify his addictions. Ryker is the most patient man in the world.  And he’s not…

Nancy J. Parra | How to Get Readers on the Edge of Their Seats
Author Guest / July 14, 2014

I’ll start at the beginning. Before you can get a reader on the edge of their seats, the reader must get to know, like, and sympathize with your character. Let’s face it a nameless, faceless woman running from a killer sort of bores us.  It reaches high up there in the “so what?” category. Therefore step one in writing suspense is to  get the reader involved and invested in the character. What if our story starts out with Marcy a single mom with 5 kids who recently left her abusive husband and is working three jobs to make enough money to save up for a small home of her very own where her kids can grow up safe. Already we know there is tension for this woman. She had an abusive husband. She has five kids. She is working three jobs which likely means they are not high paying jobs. As a reader we know that any one of these things could go seriously wrong. We are now invested in this woman. Can she continue to work three jobs? That leaves her about 4 hours of sleep a night and who is watching the kids?  If her parents are watching…

Cool Cozy Picks from Melissa Bourbon
Author Guest / July 11, 2014

Combatting the heat and staying cool in July can be tough, but a great book can do the trick. Do you like to sit by the swimming pool, soak up the sun, and devour the latest mystery on your list? Or do you stretch out on the sofa, air conditioning blowing, and get sucked into your favorite cozy worlds? Either way, this July I have some awesome cozy recommendations for you. Get your buying finger ready, because good reads are coming your way… First up are two of my favorite writer people, Juliet Blackwell and Heather Blake/Heather Webber. Both Juliet and Heather have books out this week! That’s awesome for a mystery fan like me! UNDENIABLY YOURS UNDENIABLY YOURS UNDENIABLY YOURS by Heather Webber (who also writes as Heather Blake) is available now! It’s the fifth book in the Lucy Valentine series. Lucy is a psychic investigator and when a TV journalist disappears, she has to use her abilities to figure out what happened…before it’s too late. Heather took a few minutes to answer a few pressing questions about the popular Lucy Valentine series. 1. In the movie or TV version of your series, who would play your sleuth? Go ahead…