Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Elisabeth Barrett | Second Chance Love…in Napa…for New Year’s
Author Guest / November 27, 2014

I don’t know about you, but I totally love a good second chance romance. In a second chance romance, love, once lost, is eventually found and oftentimes it is more real and poignant than ever. And there’s something about second chance romances set around the holidays that really does it for me. For many, the holidays are filled with love, and the traditions associated with the season invite reminiscing about our pasts—of loves once had—maybe even about the one that got away. There’s also an urgency that goes along with an old year ending and a new one beginning—that love must happen before it’s too late…before another Thanksgiving, another Christmas, another season, another New Year’s Eve passes us by. So finding love during this season, especially a long-lost love, just packs maximum impact. It’s this exact situation that takes place in New Year’s in Napa. Two years ago, out of guilt, brilliant scientist Mandy Aligheri gave up on a chance for love with winemaker Liam Flynn. Hurt and disappointed, they both went their separate ways. When she runs into him again, not much has changed—she’s still as beautiful, intelligent and stubborn as ever and he still has the same easy…

Lindsay McKenna | WOLF HAVEN — a Wyoming book
Author Guest / November 27, 2014

Dear Reader At last, my next Wyoming series book! Starting in 2015, I will have two Wyoming series books in a row coming out, and then two Shadow Warrior books coming out in a row. All via HQN. I love Iris Mason and her Elk Horn Ranch family as much as you do. And I love having Gus Hunter and her family from the Bar H, in the Wyoming series books, as well. In this story, you’ll get to catch up with Iris and all the expansion that’s going on at her dude ranch. Iris is one of those people where grass will never grow under her feet! She has a strong loyalty to ecology and saving the environment. And to that end, she has created a huge wildlife center on the ranch. Primarily to be a place for the local wolf population out of Yellowstone and Grand Tetons Parks that butt up against one another. She loves wolves and is lucky enough to snag Navy ex-SEAL, Grayson McCoy, to manage the facility. His mother is a world expert on wolves and he grew up with a lot of different wild animals in his house. A lot of her knowledge,…

Sara Reyes | Reflections on Giving Thanks
Author Guest / November 27, 2014

Happy Thanksgiving It’s the day of thanks and reflection on those people and things I’m most happy to have in my life. This year, I decided to make a list. It may not be complete but it’s a great start to a day filled with all the people I love and some great food. I’m thankful for lessons learned: Sometimes life hands me challenges, usually I think in retrospect to see if I can grow stronger, if I’ve learned how to deal with obstacles, if I can pivot. So far this year, my challenges included family health scares, business burps and successes, Did you ever know success has a lesson? I’m thankful for people who love me: It’s always surprising when you realize who steps up when lemons are being handed out. And this year I found a slew of them. From my enforced stay in Florida to coming home to Texas I have a bounty of friends and I’m so very grateful for each one of them. I know I’m a prickly pear at times so when they rally around I can be nothing but eternally grateful. THANK YOU EVERYONE! I’m thankful for family: Without my family I wouldn’t…

Tracy Wolff | Holidays: The Time for #Bingereading
Author Guest / November 26, 2014

First of all, I want to say thank you to the Fresh Fiction crowd for having me today!  I absolutely adore these people and am so thankful that I have them in my life!!!!!  I love to read and the Fresh Fiction team always has a million reviews and recommendations on what I should be reading—something I really appreciate now that my crazy writing schedule doesn’t let me read quite as much as I used to. That’s one of the reasons I’m so looking forward to Thanksgiving this year.  I’m usually a mess when it comes to planning (anyone who knows me can attest to this), but something about the holidays brings out the compulsive planner in me—which means that once the turkey is on for Thanksgiving dinner, I’ve got everything else done.  All I need to do is kick back, watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade with my kids and start on my #bingereading (which, let’s face it, is one of the best parts of the holiday season). This year, I’ve already got three books on my Nook just waiting to be binge read—Sylvia Day’s CAPTIVATED BY YOU, Jandy Nelson’s I’LL GIVE YOU THE SUN and Patricia Cornwell’s FLESH AND…

Cindi Madsen | Whipping Up a Good Holiday Read
Author Guest / November 26, 2014

1 Swoon-Worthy Hero That pretty much goes unsaid I guess, but it is one of the most important ingredients. In AN OFFICER AND A REBEL, we have Nate Walsh. He shows up right after former town-rebel Kelsey wrecks her car dodging a deer on the snowy road. He’s a cop, but he’s also the kind of guy who would stop to help anyone. He looks good in his uniform, and the hours he spends helping his dad on the farm on top of his job means he’s good with his hands, too. A Heavy Dusting of Snow I suppose you could have a holiday story without it, but there’s something about snow and the white wonderland it leaves behind that says Christmas. Plus it’s a good reason to stay inside & cuddle in front of a warm fireplace. See what other sparks you can get going 🙂 Holiday Treats (Use generously) Whether you’re a fan of fudge, caramel popcorn, cookies, eggnog, or all of the above, the holidays are a good time to indulge in eating. Kelsey believes all cookies should involve chocolate, and when Nate helps her out, the oven isn’t the only thing heating up the kitchen. They…

Hope Ramsay | Ties That Bind
Author Guest / November 26, 2014

Tomorrow, all over America, families will convene to celebrate Thanksgiving. There will be cooks in the kitchen making old family favorites. There will be football, family gossip, and getting down on the floor playing with the grandkids. There will be family togetherness and family drama too. And most of us wouldn’t miss it for the world. At its best, Thanksgiving reconnects us to the people we love. We celebrate our blessing and all the ties that bind us together at this season of the year. This kind of traditional family get-together is something that Mike Taggart, the hero of LAST CHANCE FAMILY has never known. Mike’s early years were painful. He left home at seventeen and became a successful professional gambler living in Las Vegas – not particularly the most family-oriented locale. He’s never had anywhere to go or be on Thanksgiving. There are no ties that pull him home because he has no real home. And then his estranged half-sister passes away, leaving him with legal custody of her five-year-old daughter, Rainbow. Mike knows he will never be the father Rainbow needs. So he sets off to find his other half-sibling, Tim, who is now a Methodist minister serving…

Tiffany Reisz | One Tip to Keep a Series Fresh
Author Guest / November 26, 2014

“A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” – Steve Jobs As of today (November 22, 2014 when I’m writing this piece), I have written seven full-length Original Sinners novels, seven Original Sinners novellas, and approximately twenty Original Sinners short stories for a grand total of over 1 million words. When writing a series of this scope with stories that span three decades, the challenge is how to keep things fresh and interesting for readers when they know your characters and this world almost as intimately as you (the writer) knows them. That’s where the Steve Jobs quote above comes in. Now it may seem strange to take writing inspiration from a computer designer and CEO, but the late-great Steve Jobs was the man responsible for the smartphone which I assume 99% of people reading this article own. You might even be reading this article on your iPhone (or another brand of smartphone, but let’s be honest, Steve Jobs is responsible for even the non-Apple smartphones). Apple was a computer company that turned into a phone company because one day Jobs and his team were sitting around a table complaining about how…

Jennifer Barnhart | Binge-Worthy Series
Author Guest / November 25, 2014

For the last week and a half, I’ve had a head cold. The type that makes every part of the body ache and getting out of bed a Herculean struggle. I stayed home a few days, burrowed into my blankets, and browsed the internet aimlessly. I kept reading articles about the best shows to binge-watch: Gilmore Girls, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Dexter, House of Cards, Games of Thrones. Granted I love a good TV show, but I wanted a list for best book series to binge-read. I’m not advocating everyone stop going to class, or work, or getting out of bed in order to read, but hey, if you’re sick and already in bed, it’d be nice to have a wonderful series to keep you company, right? That’s why as the temperatures plummet and flu season gears up this week’s list is all about binge-worthy book series. THRONE OF GLASS by Sarah J. Maas THRONE OF GLASS The Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas is about 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien. She’s served hard time in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, competed for the Crown Prince in a deadly contest to become the new royal…

Brandy Purdy | The Ripper’s Wife
Author Guest / November 25, 2014

I have been fascinated by Jack the Ripper ever since I was a little girl. In 1988, the 100th anniversary of the Whitechapel Murders, my mother gave me a paperback copy of THE COMPLETE JACK THE RIPPER by Donald Rumbelow and I was hooked. Every aspect of the case fascinated me: the victims lives, their fall from respectable poverty to alcoholism and prostitution; the setting, the stark contrast between the squalid slums of the East End and the outwardly respectable, affluent West End of London; the murders themselves, the audacity and brutality; the elusive, unidentified killer, and, most of all, the reason for his rage; and the endless, and ongoing, parade of suspects throughout the years from the absurd like Lewis Carroll of ALICE IN WONDERLAND fame to royal, Masonic, and occult conspiracies. I read every book I could get my hands on and to this day I’ve never formed an opinion about the killer’s identity; as much as we would like to know, I think the mystery would be spoiled if we knew for sure, the speculation, the game of Hunt the Ripper, I think, is what keeps this case alive. When the controversial DIARY OF JACK THE RIPPER…

Laura Kaye | Writing an Amputee Hero
Author Guest / November 25, 2014

I’m so excited to be here at Fresh Fiction on release day to celebrate my new book, HARD TO COME BY. This book is part of a super sexy and suspenseful series about the surviving members of an Army Special Forces unit investigating the suspicious circumstances that got them dishonorably discharged from the military. HARD TO COME BY is about amputee hero and team technie Derek “Marz” DiMarzio, who finds himself falling for the sister of one of their known enemies. I have loved Marz from the first moment he walked onto the page in book one, HARD AS IT GETS. In addition to being drop-dead sexy, he’s upbeat, outgoing, and always ready with a joke to uplift everyone’s spirits. Marz is also selfless and giving, depriving himself of sleep to do all the research the team needs for their investigation. And, of course, that selflessness was never demonstrated more than when he saved his best friend’s life on the field of battle and ended up with a below-the-knee amputation. Here’s what Marz’s thinks about that: Not that Marz would undo how it’d all gone down. Because him losing his leg meant that Beckett, Marz’s best friend in the world…