Our reviewer Monique Daoust is a big fan of Lynsay Sands novels especially the Argeneau Vampires series. She had the chance to ask Lynsay some questions. Please join us as we eavesdrop on their conversation. ““RUNAWAY VAMPIRE feels so fresh and new, it seems like a brand new series!” What a thrill it is to welcome Lynsay Sands to Fresh Fiction today! I am so excited to speak with you today, Lynsay! I have been a fan for a long time of both your historical novels as well as the reason we’re here today: vampires! I read A QUICK BITE, thereafter I got every one of your vampire books; I’ve remained a fan throughout the years for several reasons: your legendary sense of humour, the combination of sweet and sexy, and the originality of the series. Simply reading the blurb for ABOUT A VAMPIRE had me almost salivating. After so many books, how do you keep the stories so fresh? How do you find new ideas? I bore easily, so I have to keep it interesting enough to entertain me. If it isn’t, then the story gets dropped and I start another. (The funny thing is this can also happen…

I’m so glad to be here today to celebrate the release of TEMPER, thanks for having me. This book was the first time I’ve ever written a sequel and there were times where it was tricky. I had to consider all that came before and the path of the characters after their initial apparent victory at the end of LIFER. Of course I have moments difficult moments in life as well as writing. I’ve found a few things which help with both. So today I wanted to share with you my top five things to do when things are tricky: Go for a walk/run Last year I was lucky enough to be able to participate in the NY marathon. It was one of the single best and most difficult days of my life. I have to admit that lots of my training was thinking time for Temper. Exercise gives me a fresh set of eyes to look at something. Read a book Like most writers, I was a reader first and there’s nothing better when the words are giving me trouble than refuelling with a wonderful story. I tend to read away from what I’m writing. For example, I’ll read…

In less than two weeks MONTGOMERY MANOR, The Haunted Book #2 will be released. Like HARGROVE HOUSE, The Haunted Book #1, which was released October 1, 2015, I am taking the reader on a journey of eternal love inside a haunted house. Why, you may ask would I dare to venture into a haunted house? For the thrill, of course! I love romance. Add the thrill, the scare, the suspense of a ghost or two, and you’ve got the perfect love/ eternal story. And let’s not forget the hidden treasure, the stalker, the graves dug in the cellar, the cemetery out back, or the question of who might be playing the piano when no one is sitting on the piano stool. I love the kind of scare that keeps me on the edge of the seat without giving me nightmares. I have always written about true love and was inspired to add in the ghosts and haunted houses after visiting a few such houses. I have not yet gathered the courage to spend the night in a haunted house, but I have eaten lunch at a few as well as studied the families who lived (or died) in them. Although…

In LOVE ME, LOVE ME NOT, Ana is a swan maiden: she can control the weather, heal with herbs, make magic arrows with her hair, and sing songs to make you fall in love. But that doesn’t mean everything, especially love, comes easy for her. Is this why Shakespeare said, “The course of true love never did run smooth”?!? Singing Magic Songs: Yes, Ana can sing songs to make you fall in love. Or songs to make your head explode. See? This is already complicated. Feather Cloak Complications: If you don’t fall in love, you can’t get your feather cloak. No cloak, means no turning into a swan, which means possibly going crazy and living in the woods eating fish heads like Ana’s Aunt Morag. Your future is looking kind of weird already. Magic Cupcakes!: So yummy! So tricky. Some spells make you fall in love, some make you fall out of love. So then…is it really love? Who knew chocolate frosting could be so philosophical? Magic can be a Little Unhygienic: Sometimes magic involves flower petals and water left under the moonlight. But sometimes it requires the swan-blood of your third great-grandmother that your family keeps in a jar….

So many fictional boyfriends, so little time. Here are a few of my favorites, in no particular order (okay, I’d cut you to get with Hardy Cates): Rowdy Yates from GETTING ROWDY by Lori Foster. With his sketchy past, and his penchant for hitting first and asking questions later, Rowdy is a great protective alpha. And the cover for this book is perfection. Flynn from WILLING VICTIM by Cara McKenna. Construction worker-boxer with a taste for rough role-playing, and while we never get inside his head, McKenna lays it all out there. A Boston bruiser I wouldn’t mind meeting in a dark alley. Hardy Cates from BLUE-EYED DEVIL by Lisa Kleypas. Rich, Texan, from the wrong side of the tracks, and so caring of the heroine. LK writes the caretaker alpha so well, and Hardy is my favorite of her heroes. Joey Miller from COLLISION COURSE by K.A. Mitchell. This is an M/M romance and while some people probably prefer the brooding Aaron of this pairing, I love, love, love the manipulative, puppy-eyed, totally grounded Joey. A surfing social worker, he’s the perfect match for a guy who’s been screwed over by the social services system. Lord Vere from HIS…

My favorite scene from HIGHLAND SPITFIRE is this one, at the wedding feast. One of the challenges of writing historical is to remember that these people are not modern ones. At least, that’s my personal challenge. I don’t want to write a story about a modern woman with just the ‘fun’ parts of history. Sure, I draw the line at some of the more unsavory bits that history has to offer but it’s important to me to try and make these people real to their time. A lot of people think that because you were born the daughter of a laird, you got to be waited on all day long. The truth was, a lady was someone who was highly educated and her role in the future of the clan was set from the moment she was baptized. This is very true for the laird’s son too. What they might have personally wanted really didn’t factor in. For sure there were nobles that were spoiled so badly that they lost touch with the real world but I don’t see that happening in the Highlands. Life was simply too hard to allow for any member of the clan to be so…

I am a child of the country and grew up near a very small town, so that life was familiar to me. As for coming up with the town, I knew it had to be southern, and there is no state more southern that Georgia and old southern charm. There is a LilyAnn in everyone’s high school. The smartest, prettiest girl who made everything look easy and garnered all the awards, then never quite figured out how to transition that success into adulthood. I wanted to write about a woman like that who found a way to put the past aside and step into her own. Here is a sneak peek of YOU AND ONLY YOU: Lily was busy putting up new stock, mostly oblivious to the customers coming and going. She opened the top on another box of painkillers, checked to make sure the unit price was the same as the shelf price, and then began sliding the bottles into place. She heard footsteps coming down the aisle and absently stepped to the side to let them pass as she continued to work. Instead, the footsteps stopped and then someone tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me, lady. Where…

The books in the Willow Park Series are named NOBODY’S ANGEL, NOBODY’S FOOL and NOBODY’S PRINCESS—I’m guessing you’re seeing a pattern here. Despite being the last book in the series, NOBODY’S PRINCESS got its name first and provided the framework for the other two. But just what makes Tiffany Desjardins NOBODY’S PRINCESS? On the surface, she is a princess, from her size 2 Versace dresses all the way down to her Jimmy Choos. But Tiffany gave me the chance to explore something about women that is a bit of a hobby-horse of mine. Women and our sense of self. As women we go from being somebody’s daughter, to somebody’s wife, and in some case, somebody’s mother. It’s so easy to lose who we are in that process. In addition, society has long defined our value by the way we look. Although this is changing, traces of it still linger, and far too often well fall into the trap. Tiffany has spent her life defined by other people. First her father, then her first husband and now, her fiancée. As a beautiful girl, she has also become valued only for what she looks like, and has shaped her entire identity around…

In November, I was fortunate to participate in a boxed set with ten other awesome romantic suspense authors, and feature the novella, True Navy Blue. This was the beginning of Zak and Amy’s story. Once high school sweethearts, they hook up one final time before Zak goes off to the Navy to fulfill his goal of becoming a Navy SEAL. At the end of the novella, we are left with Zak and Amy foiling a terrorist attack in San Francisco at the Ferry Plaza complex, when Amy frantically calls on Zak for support after he has just received his Trident. The full length book just released: True Blue SEALs: Zak, takes the story further to Zak and Amy’s wedding, and his first deployment on a super secret mission in the Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa, where the balance of power in the region is threatened. Zak returns home a different man than the one who left. We have the usual cast of regulars, including Zak’s LPO for SEAL Team 3, Kyle Lansdowne, Fredo, Cooper, Armando, T.J. and several of the bachelor SEALs, including Lucas, Alex and Carter, as well as wives and families. Brothers to the end….

I have often been asked if I am anything like the main character in my Culinary Competition mystery series, Amy Ridley. There are a few things, like we are both short and blonde, but the biggest connection is a mutual love of trying unusual foods. Amy uses the unique ingredients she finds to develop prize-winning recipes. While I have never competed in a culinary competition, I write my foodie finds into my books. There’s a running joke in my family that the odder a food is, the more likely I’ll buy it. Fermented foods, condiments and dried goods like unusual varieties of rice or ancient grains are some of my favorite things to buy. Recently, on a trip to Detroit’s historic Eastern Market, I stopped by a store that had a large selection of bulk foods from shawarma spice to dried beans. I got a small bag of Scarlet Runner Beans, which I’ve had fresh but never dried, and another variety of bean that I had never heard of before – Lupini. When I got home I decided to look up directions for how to prepare the Lupini beans. I clicked on a blog post with instructions and, I admit,…