Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Angela Ruth Strong | Second Chance Romance
Author Guest / January 11, 2016

My first book sale was practically a fluke. I’d spent years writing two manuscripts that I loved with a passion. I found an agent. I had interested publishers. And while I waited for editors to make their final decision, I noticed a new publisher was looking for Christian romance stories set in small towns with cute names. To submit, all I had to do was write three chapters and a synopsis. I did it in a day, sent it to my agent, and forgot about it. My agent called with good news. I was so excited. Except the good news wasn’t about the manuscripts I’d spent years on. It was for a book I hadn’t even written yet. A sale was a sale. I’d take it. I pulled out my synopsis to remind myself what I’d be writing about. Ha! It included a chubby, unicycle-riding twelve-year-old named after Superman’s father. Writing that story was going to be fun. Except before I finished writing the book, my husband of ten years left me. And I had to write a romance novel while my own marriage fell apart. I never wanted to write romance again. And besides the Costco book-signing in 2010…

Scott Allan Morrison | You Don’t Always Get What You Think You Want…
Author Guest / January 11, 2016

…sometimes it’s better. The cover of my new novel TERMS OF USE looks nothing like I had envisioned – and, boy, am I glad. I remember the very first time I stopped to consider the cover. My publisher Thomas & Mercer had sent a questionnaire in which I was asked, among other things, to describe my ideal cover and the mood I wished it to convey. They also asked me to submit images or other art to guide the cover designer. TERMS OF USE is a thriller about the dark side of social media, so I knew immediately the cover should feel foreboding. And my story revolves around a hero who goes on the run to save himself and, it turns out, pretty much everyone else. So I thought my cover should feature a man looking over his shoulder as he escapes a group of people linked together in a network of spokes and nodes. As a second option, I suggested a collage of a face of a woman, suggestive of the socialbots in my story. Many weeks passed as I lost myself in copy editing and proofreading my story. Then one day I received an email with two cover…

Fresh Pick | OUT COMES THE EVIL by Stella Cameron
Fresh Pick / January 11, 2016

Fresh Pick for Monday, January 11th, 2016 is OUT COMES THE EVIL by Stella Cameron #SuspenseMonday About OUT COMES THE EVIL Second in the traditional British mystery series featuring rural inn owner and amateur sleuth Alex Duggins: an intriguing departure for bestselling romantic suspense author Stella Cameron. Once again Alex Duggins and her veterinarian friend Tony Harrison are thrown into a major murder investigation. An almost fresh body is discovered in a disused well among the ruins of a 14th-century manor house … the motive for the killing a baffling mystery. The victim was a widow who had lived quietly in the picturesque Cotswolds village of Folly-on-Weir for the past ten years. Who on earth could want her dead, and by such brutal means? As rumour and speculation engulf the town, another woman is attacked – and Alex discovers that behind a tranquil face lurks a cunning and vengeful mind. Despite warnings from the police to stop interfering, she finds herself in the sights of a ruthless killer who has decided she knows too much … Buy OUT COMES THE EVIL: Kindle|BN.com | iTunes/iBooks | Kobo | Google Play | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon…

Susan Stoker | Everything Ends … or does it?
Author Guest / January 11, 2016

PROTECTING THE FUTURE is the last book in the SEAL of Protection Series. I’ve had many people ask me why I’m ending the series when it’s been so popular. For one thing I never intended the series to be thirty books long. I think I, and the readers too, would get bored. I also don’t want to be pigeon-holed into being a writer who only writes “SEAL” books. “But Susan, the series is popular, you’re crazy to end it when everyone loves it!” Maybe, but I’m hoping my readers will read my other books as well. Heck, I’m addicted to the “damsel in distress” trope and even though Cookie and Benny and the others won’t have books about them anymore, my Heroes will always have someone to rescue (and need to be rescued in their own way right back). “Maybe you can write about their KIDS!” Nope. I don’t particularly like writing (or reading) about the kids of my Heroes and heroines, because that means that those Heroes and heroines will get OLD….gasp! Can’t have that! I want them to live on in my mind exactly the same age they are on the pages of the books. “But I’m gonna…

Laura Childs | Crafting a Cozy Mystery
Author Guest / January 11, 2016

After writing 34 mysteries (Cackleberry Club, Tea Shop, and Scrapbooking Mysteries) my readers always assume that I’ve developed some magical mystery template or foolproof system. The truth of the matter is, I haven’t. The closest I come to a workable process is jumpstarting each new mystery with a “what if” factor. You know what I mean – What if somebody whacked Crazy Aunt Bertha with a candlestick? From there I try to come up with an offbeat circumstance or plot device (haunted house, jewel heist, horse race, chase through the swamp) that I can spring on readers in the very first chapter. From there I move on to the most fun of all – spinning tales of interesting characters. My female protagonists are always drawn as independent, free-spirited, and highly creative entrepreneurs. That way they can be driven to seek out justice (i.e. solving a murder), tend to be feisty (sometimes nasty!) toward law enforcement, and are generally offbeat characters in their everyday lives. Plotting always comes easy to me as well. The truth of the matter is, I usually have so many ideas (murder, fire, car crashes, burglaries, chases!) that the hard part is fitting it all in. I’m…

Leslie Budewitz | Ten Favorite Things About Seattle
Author Guest / January 11, 2016

When I started telling people that my second Spice Shop mystery was on the way, a surprising number asked how I could write about Seattle when I live in Montana. (Oddly, I don’t remember hearing that question when the first book came out.) Newer friends, obviously, and a reporter or two, who didn’t know I went to college in Seattle, moved back after law school, and practiced there for eight years. Or that Mr. Right and I make regular pilgrimages for research. By which I mean “eat.” So I started ticking off my favorite things in the Emerald City. Tomorrow’s list might be entirely different—cities are always in flux, and so is what we love about them. The gum wall. Okay, I’m joking. I hate the gum wall. It’s gross. For those who don’t know this disgusting feature—a travel company dubbed it the second germiest tourist attraction in the world, after Ireland’s Blarney Stone—a decade or two ago, people waiting outside the Market Theater starting sticking their gum on the wall when they went inside for a show. Really? They meant to come back for it? I saw many a movie in that theater and it never would have occurred…