Though Georgia Thackery, an English professor and single mother, is the actual protagonist of my Family Skeleton mystery series, it’s the skeleton himself that people associate most with the books. You see, the Thackery family skeleton is an actual skeleton: Georgia’s best friend Sid, who lives in the Thackery family attic. Well, sort of. Technically he’s not living. Despite that, Sid walks, talks and makes bad jokes. And he’s the one readers usually mention first when talking about the books. My calling them the Family Skeleton Mysteries may also have something to do with that. I admit that having an osteo-American sidekick is a bit unusual. In fact, when I first came up with the idea of a skeletal sleuth, I thought I was being astoundingly original, even ground-breaking. But the fact is, there are a slew of skeletons in popular culture, and Sid is connected to all of them. Metaphorically, anyway, since he no longer has connective tissue. The most famous skeleton is probably the big guy himself: the Grim Reaper. He’s usually portrayed as a skeletal harbinger of death wearing a chic black robe, carrying a scythe. Sid doesn’t go in much for clothes, other than when attending…

Anybody who reads Scottish history will come across mention of the Massacre at Glencoe, an incident involving the English government of William of Orange and a small sept of Clan MacDonald who dwelled in the valley of Glencoe. Delayed by snowstorms, red tape, fractious English soldiers, and a recalcitrant royal magistrate, the Laird of the clan was a few days late signing his oath of allegiance to the Dutchman who’d taken over England’s throne. On Friday, February 13, 1692, at precisely 5 a.m., per orders, royalist soldiers of Clan Campbell who’d been billeted among the MacDonalds for more than two weeks, rose up and literally murdered their hosts in their beds. Anybody below the age of seventy was shot or put to the sword—women, children, and even men who’d surrendered and were bound hand and foot. In all, 38 of the sept’s 150 souls were killed, and more perished in the days that followed. Sir John Dalrymple, who’d engineered this show of force to quell loyalty to the deposed Catholic (Jacobite) line of the royal succession, was astonished at the outrage the incident provoked. Highland reaction railed against the murder of defenseless infants and elderly, but equal contumely was aimed…

I’ve been fascinated by dreams for as long as I can remember, and as a psychologist, I listen to dreams all day long!  My patients love to recount their dreams to me. Their dream material offers me a window into their innermost feelings, their hopes and dreams, their fears and anxieties.  In NIGHTMARES CAN BE MURDER, a group of Savannah women form a dream club and meet every week to discuss their dreams and solve a murder or two. Here are some of the most common questions people have asked me about dreams. “What does it mean if a dead relative appears to me in a dream?” When people dream of a loved one who has passed, they usually experience a sense of joy and peace. It reassures them to know that their friends, relatives and spouses really do exist on another plane. Invariably, the loved one appears to be in perfect health, happy and relaxed with no sorrow or cares. “Why do I keep dreaming about a beautiful house? “ The “House Dream” is very common and well documented. The house is supposed to represent all the untapped potential in your life. All the rooms are bright and airy,…

Hi, everyone! I’m Samantha Grace, historical romance author of the series Rival Rogues. It’s great to be back at Fresh Fiction on release day for IN BED WITH A ROGUE. Book two focuses on the romantic connection between Lady Helena Prestwick and Sebastian, Baron Thorne, and it was a relief to finally give Sebastian the happy-ending he deserved, especially since he was jilted in the first book. Poor guy. But introducing him to his true love would never have been enough to satisfy me. There was a broken friendship to fix, too. Give me the BROMANCE! I’m sure most of us are familiar with the term, but a bromance is a close non-romantic friendship between two or more men. In the past, maybe it was called a sidekick? Some of my favorite bromances include: Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn The Three Musketeers Joey & Chandler (Friends) Spock & Captain Kirk (New Star Trek) Napoleon Dynamite & Pedro Forest Gump & Bubba Shrek & Donkey The list could go on, but I’ll stop here. I’ve always loved the dynamics of the male buddy relationship. Maybe it’s because I grew up…

As a child growing up in England, I knew my grandmother’s husband Patrick as ‘grandpa’. But in the family albums I saw pictures of my mother and her sisters with mysterious American cousins, and over time I learnt that my real grandfather was someone else – someone my grandmother clearly didn’t want mentioned. There were no pictures of him in the albums, and my grandmother was happy to let people think that my mother and aunts were Patrick’s children. Yet once Patrick died, and my grandmother was approaching the end of her own life, she became more willing to talk to me about my real American grandfather, whose name she told me was Lawrence. He was an American captain and she had met him while working as a typist at the US Army headquarters in London during the war. Her eyes sparkled as she told me about the excitement she, like so many other young women, had felt at encountering Americans for the first time. After three long years of conflict, with most young, eligible British men off fighting abroad, the Yanks brought with them fun, romance, a ready supply of luxurious gifts such as nylon stockings and chocolate, and,…

On August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr stood in front of over 250,000 thousand marchers and delivered the famous “I Have a Dream” speech. He died long before I was born, but I can hear his voice in my head, the slow, careful delivery as if each word carried the weight of a million voices behind it. He spoke not only for himself, but for all those who dreamt of equality. His was one voice that contained the hopes, dreams, and fears of a nation. His words rang out loud and clear, so that fifty-one years later we can still feel the weight of his words on us, still share the same dream of equality, and still find a voice of our own to speak out against all forms of injustice and inequality. That’s why this week’s young adult recommendations are about one voice that can learn to speak for the millions who share a dream of a future where all people are equal. BECAUSE THEY MARCHED: THE PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN FOR VOTING RIGHTS THAT CHANGED AMERICA by Russell Freedman BECAUSE THEY MARCHED “For the 50th anniversary of the 1965 march for voting right from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, Newberry…

I’m so excited to be able to talk about my newest book, OWN. Katsu and Evan are a really fun couple, mostly because of the sparks that fly between them. You see, this isn’t their first go-round. Evan is in a secret special ops unit, and Katsu is his boss’s daughter—and they had their first affair the summer before she left for college. Katsu will never forget the time they spent together: Doubts would carry her back to when she’d been too young to be anything but reckless. Head-over-heels reckless over Evan Sommers. Once they’d landed in bed, they’d hardly made it out for six weeks. Every night together, and every strange and quirky date they would end up on, had felt like a present. The thing is, young love isn’t like anything else in life. There’s something special about that first flush of emotion and connection that you feel with a person. When it comes with something special—like quirky dates—you feel like you don’t only have something special, you are something special. So what do quirky dates mean to Evan and Katsu? 1. Going to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Katsu’s hometown) and pretending to be docents….

G’day everyone! Welcome to my PULLING LEATHER blog tour and a peek into the world of rodeo cowboys. (The official schedule can be found here.) This wouldn’t be a proper tour without some prezzies, of course, so read on for giveaway details. Thank you to Fresh Fiction for kicking off my new tour, and to all of you for hopping in the saddle to ride along!   * * *   From the Merriam-Webster dictionary: an·ti·he·ro : a main character in a book, play, movie, etc., who does not have the usual good qualities that are expected in a hero   When I first started PICKUP MEN, Scott Gillard wasn’t even an antihero, he was absolutely the villain and he was going to end up in jail, never to be heard from again. But you’ve all heard the saying about those who protest too much? As the story went on and I pondered where this series was going to go, Scott started popping up more often and I began to wonder… What if there was more to his story? What if his issues were deeper than just being an irredeemable asshole? Could I find a way to bring him around? Tough,…

Author: Bec McMaster Writes: The London Steampunk series, with my latest release FORGED BY DESIRE hitting shelves September 2nd, 2014 About: Thirty-something romance author seeks readers for kick-bustle steampunk/paranormal romance, with a friends-to-lovers theme, a hero who knows women through-and-through, some steamy sex-in-the-rain action, and a heroine who doesn’t need a man to save her… Looking for more than just a one-book fling, though I don’t require monogamy with my heroes – feel free to love them all What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: ▪ Their idea of the perfect date includes a Saturday night in with their e-reader/or paperback, a block of chocolate and perhaps a glass of wine… ▪  Dreams of a sexy HEA ▪ Falls easily in love with some devilish heroes who know what they want and aren’t afraid to go after it ▪ Likes dark, sensual stories with touches of saucy humor ▪ Doesn’t mind the odd bad-boy with a rakish sense of charm ▪ Enjoys a fast-paced, swash-buckling plot – think chases across rooftops, duels, explosions… ▪ Wants to BE that heroine who takes names, fights her own battles, and isn’t above signing up to a challenge of wits with their…

I grew up in Minnesota, which essentially means I grew up in the middle of a forest. Except for the evergreens, in the dead of winter we were surrounded by trees stripped bare by the previous autumn winds. Naked branches splayed dark against the chill-gray sky like so many spidery veins on an old man’s hand. Despite the starkness of winter, even as a child, I found an inherent beauty in the season. I still do. And when flocked with a thick layer of snow, winter trees carry a magical essence that takes my breath away. When I was a child, my mother once suggested that I might gain an interesting, non-judgmental perspective of life, and the world we live in, by imagining things this way: If an alien being landed on earth in northern Minnesota in freezing January, and having never seen a tree, would the being think this was the permanent landscape of the entire earth? Would this alien have the capacity to perceive a life that defies description hidden inside the bare branches? How would one convey to him or her (or it) that in just a few months, juicy green sprouts would burst forth? And those…