Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Maria K. Alexander | Five Steps to Redeem the Family Name
Author Guest / February 24, 2015

What’s a recently retired army sergeant to do when he returns home to find himself shunned by the town? In my new Contemporary Romance, FOREVER IN MY HEART, the hero returns home after serving in the army to a town that holds him accountable for the sins of his late brothers. Leading the pack is the girl he left behind who has matured into a sexy and independent woman who owns the hot new café in town. To what end will he have to go in order to redeem himself to the girl he never stopped loving? 1. Own up to his mistakes and to those of his brothers. When Jamie DiSilva returns home after nine years in the army, he intends to make amends to his former high school girlfriend for dumping her in a text. What he didn’t count on was the damage inflicted by his late brothers to the family of the girl he’s never forgotten. With Vicky DiFrancesco grown up and more beautiful than ever, can Jamie convince her to give him another chance? And what about her meddling family who seems intent on keeping him away from her? 2. Convince a sassy café owner into…

Cozy Corner: Melissa Bourbon, a Magical Mystery
Cozy Corner / February 24, 2015

I met Melissa Bourbon (Misa Ramirez) for the first time in 2009 at Barnes & Noble on the Texas Christian University Campus. I was new to the industry, having just joined RWA, and went out to support a writer on the release of her very first book, LIVING LA VIDA LOLA, A Lola Cruz Mystery. What I found was a quiet, cute, tall blond with a quick smile and a soft voice. This was the first (and only) time I’ve seen Misa wearing a conservative navy blue suit. Since then she’s let her inner artist take over at her book signings, so after ten cozy mysteries, two romantic suspense novels, one light paranormal romance, one how-to book, and one children’s book you’ll now find her wearing funky hats, sassy pig-tails with homemade wool beads or a bright scarf around her neck—she has grown into her National Best-selling Author shoes with style. Kym: Welcome back to the Cozy Corner, Misa! Misa: Wow, what a memory you have! A blue suit? Have I ever owned a blue suit??!! Kym: I love your Magical Dress Making Mystery Series set in Bliss, Texas. Can you tell our readers who or what inspired you to…

Joel N. Clark | An Adventure Awaits in the Jack Staples trilogy
Author Guest / February 23, 2015

What if everyone in the world is born with invisible scales over their eyes? What if these scales cause us to live in a shadow of the real world without ever seeing what’s truly there? What if the real world is far more magical, fantastical and dangerous than we could possibly imagine? And what if for some the scales have fallen off? This is the world of the Jack Staples trilogy. Those who have lost their scales are known as the Awakened and they follow the Author. The Awakened have fought the Shadow Souled and their master, the Assassin since the very first humans awakened. Eleven-year-old Jack Staples knows nothing of the Awakened and their war. He has grown up in the small town of Ballylesson, Ireland in the mid 1800’s. Jack also doesn’t know that he is special. Before the world came into being a prophecy was given of a child who would be born without scales. The prophecy was clear, the child would destroy the world; and the child would save the world. Since the very first scales fell off, the Awakened have been searching for the Child of Prophecy who is both feared and longed for. When…

Glen Erik Hamilton | JUST LOOK WHAT YOU DID
Author Guest / February 23, 2015

Babies don’t have rules, of course. That’s why they make such great subjects for online videos. As long as you keep the hand tools and the vodka out of their reach, it’s a lot of fun to watch a bouncing bundle of pure id. Bigger challenges come when they get a little older, and it becomes time to start teaching our children the very abstract concepts of right and wrong. Those were concepts that I was struggling with myself. Not as a mostly-functional adult (quick, hide the hand tools), but as a writer. I had just begun to write seriously, working on the book that would evolve into PAST CRIMES. The protagonist is Van Shaw, a man raised by a career criminal, in the kind of environment where breaking the law is literally all in a day’s work. So during the day I might need to explain to my daughter why we can’t just grab the stuffed hippo and leave the store, while at night I was writing about Van, who would not have been taught the same rule. Van would have learned how to case the place, so that he and his grandfather could break into its combination safe…

Elizabeth Heiter | Getting Your Priorities Straight
Author Guest / February 23, 2015

I love strong heroines. I love reading them, and I really love writing them. They don’t have to be physically tough (although all three heroines in my Lawmen series for Harlequin Intrigue work for the FBI, so they’ve been through the Academy, including grueling physical training!). Being strong doesn’t mean they aren’t vulnerable, either (a heroine who’s too perfect isn’t very relatable). To me, a strong heroine is someone who is courageous, who does what’s right even when it’s hard, and who has strong values and priorities. FBI profiler Isabella Cortez, the heroine of my first Lawmen book, has very strong priorities: 1. Balance work and play. She’s ready to take an overdue vacation with her two best friends when homicide detective Logan Greer approaches her with a case he wants her to profile. There’s an immediate attraction when they meet and Ella thinks, “Too bad she hadn’t run into him on the beach next week with a margarita in her hand instead of on her last day before vacation, toting a gun.” 2. Put your friends first. Ella has every intention of giving Logan a quick profile, then heading off to her vacation. But when the case file he…

Kat Martin | The Brodies of Alaska: A Look Behind the Scenes
Author Guest / February 19, 2015

Having written more than sixty books, including AGAINST THE SKY, my latest Romantic Suspense release, I’m always looking for new story ideas.  Which is why, when the opportunity arose to travel for a month to Alaska, staying in the back of a tiny pickup camper–I said yes! With a contract for three new novels, I needed ideas.  A trip to Alaska seemed the perfect opportunity to find new plots and develop interesting characters. AGAINST THE WILD, Dylan Brodie’s story, became the first of my Brodies of Alaska Trilogy, a ghost story that morphs into a tale of love, murder, and redemption. In AGAINST THE SKY, the second book in the trilogy,  Nick Brodie, a former Anchorage homicide detective, has a serious case of burnout.  Nick wants a new life, something that doesn’t include violence and death. Unfortunately when his neighbor, twelve-year-old Jimmy Evans, comes to him beaten and battered, claiming his father was murdered, Nick has no choice but to help him. To make matters worse, Nick has a lady friend visiting from San Francisco.  Samantha Hollis, owner of the Perfect Pup pet grooming parlor, isn’t cut out for the harsh life in Alaska.  Unwillingly swept into Jimmy’s problems, she…

Rachael Thomas | Top Five Most Exciting Moments
Author Guest / February 18, 2015

Being new to the job of a published writer, I thought I’d share the top five most exciting moments of my journey from the time I began chapter one of that very first story. Writing romance is something I’d dreamed of doing for so many years, but it was about eight years ago I sat down and seriously started to pursue that dream. It’s been a long road, with lots of highs and plenty of lows, too. One piece of advice I was given was to enjoy writing and the journey chasing that dream would take me on – and I did! 1. The first time I wrote “the end” – It’s a major milestone and should be marked accordingly. Whether that story makes it into print or not, you are a writer, so go and crack open a bottle of bubbly, or at the very least, give yourself a pat on the back. 2. There are other writers out there? – When I started writing it felt like I was the only unpublished writer out there, but as soon as I joined The Romantic Novelists’ Association I began meeting lots of women just like me, who were hooked on…

Eliot Pattison | More Real than Reality
Author Guest / February 18, 2015

One of the great gifts I receive as a writer are the messages from readers who say they never truly understood the situation in Tibet or life on the colonial frontier –the settings of my two series—until they read my novels. It highlights an aspect of writing that we too often ignore. Good fiction can, and should, help us understand our world more effectively than nonfiction. Historians deal with sterile facts, on a macro, societal level—and our collective understanding of history slips lower every year. Skilled novelists translate those facts into personal human experience, providing the reader with an opportunity to viscerally connect with another time and place. Your mind may grasp the dreadful statistics of China’s occupation of Tibet but if you truly want to understand that world, your heart needs to grasp the anguish of the gentle lama who is tormented for sitting at an altar with his Buddha. You can find plenty of timelines and bodycounts reflecting life in the American colonies but they pale beside experiencing the power of an Iroquois shaman through the eyes of an exiled Scot sitting at his campfire. “Fiction,” Emerson wrote, “reveals truth that reality obscures.” For those of us who…

Joya Ryan | Computer History
Author Guest / February 18, 2015

So…I have my own laptop. It’s where all the writing happens naturally. However, I forget that surfing the web comes with mapping and tracking your computer history. Not that it really matters…until you go on someone else’s computer. Let’s say, for example, my husbands. Surfing the web for “hot shirtless guys with tattoos” may be a normal thing in my world (because hey, a girl needs to have inspiration when writing about a ripped, sexy hero!) but when my laptop was out of commission for a couple days, I used my husband’s desktop computer. When I finally got through the week and was back to my precious, the hubby had some questions about the browser history I’d left behind. “Um, J?” he asks as he scrolls through his computer. “Why am I getting pop ups of…” tilts his head, “half naked dudes?” He clicks through to get to his Amazon account. “And why is Amazon recommending erotic novels based on a book ‘Owned By Fate’ to me?” Looks closer at the screen. “Is that woman on the cover naked? With a blind fold over her eyes?” Oh, I forgot to mention I ordered some E-books through his Amazon account. But!…

Sarah Mayberry | Dream Casting for BOUND TO THE BACHELOR
Author Guest / February 18, 2015

When I write a book, it’s pretty much as though I’m trying to describe the movie that’s playing in my head, so when Fresh Fiction asked what the dream cast of the movie version of BOUND TO THE BACHELOR would look like, I was ready to roll. Sort of. I’m not one of those writers who does story boards and collages and collects images to inspire me as I write, mostly because I can’t find images of men or women who fit the idea in my head, I guess. But! I do have a few go-to inspirations that get me started on my writing journey, and in the case of BOUND TO THE BACHELOR, those two starting points were people who just happened to be actors. How convenient! First up, a confession: I’ve always been a tall, dark and handsome kind of girl. Not sure why, but I just love a dark-headed man. There are, however, a couple of blond men that I think are just STUNNING. Paul Newman is absolutely at the head of that list. And since this is dream casting, I would totally want him to play the role of Beau Bennet. He’s got Beau’s essential qualities:…