Today was a really bad day for me. I don’t have many really bad days, but when they come up, I’m not a nice person. And the strange thing is that a really bad day has a tendency to escalate into a horrific day quite easily. It started with waking up late. I try to wake up in time to work two hours before my kids go to school. Not today. I not only woke up late, but I woke the kids up late too. Once they’re up, there’s no working until I drop them off and return to the house. Today, life was a mad scramble. After working a frustrating four hours on my current manuscript, my slow descent in chaos escalated when I had a doctor appointment and was told to permanently eliminate sugar from my diet. Chocolate is my valium. Without it? A very bad day. No- make that a very bad life! From the doctor’s office I went to grab a bite to eat before heading to pick up the kids from school. My snack? A salad. No matter what anyone says, salad can NEVER replace chocolate as a snack. EVER. Add on a traffic jam…

Fresh Pick for Sunday, March 6th, 2016 is MACKENZIE’S MOUNTAIN by Linda Howard #SundayClassic now in digital format, a classic romance About MACKENZIE’S MOUNTAIN Available digitally for the first time ever, MACKENZIE’S MOUNTAIN is a classic novel of romantic suspense from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Linda Howard Mary Elizabeth Potter is a self-appointed spinster with no illusions about love. When she meets Wolf Mackenzie, a man with a chip on his shoulder the size of Wyoming, she sets out to convince the whole town he’s a man worth loving. But Wolf’s not sure he’s for the taming of Wolf Mackenzie. Featuring an excerpt from TROUBLEMAKER, Linda Howard’s new hardcover novel! Buy MACKENZIE’S MOUNTAIN: Kindle | BN.com | iTunes/iBooks | Kobo | Google Play | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR About Linda Howard I began writing at the age of nine, far too young to know better. I’ve always lived with other people inside my head, so I’m at a loss when people ask me where I get my ideas. Coming from a long line of smart-asses the way I do, I’m always tempted to say “From the Idea catalog.” Is…

Fresh Pick for Friday, March 4th, 2016 is COME TO THE GARDEN by Jennifer Wilder Morgan About COME TO THE GARDEN A novel based on true experiences, Come to the Garden is a story about a woman’s journey with a mysterious angel that encourages readers to believe heaven is closer than they think. Years ago, author Jennifer Wilder Morgan served as a hospital volunteer, visiting critically ill patients—praying with them and listening to their stories. As she created a safe space for those of all faiths and backgrounds, patients began confiding in Morgan about the mysterious ways God speaks to them—including encounters with angels, visions of loved ones who’ve passed on, and messages of comfort spoken in dreams. She witnessed the profound healing that occurs when people are permitted to talk about these experiences, and as a result, Morgan was inspired to share her own personal encounters with God in a novel. In Come to the Garden, the main character Jenn wakes up on her birthday to find an angel introducing herself as Margaret in the backyard garden. Lately Jenn has been struggling to make sense of the mysterious ways God has been speaking to her and is trying to…

Have you ever read a book and fallen in love with the male lead? Waving my hand. I still sigh just thinking about Marcus O’Malley from Dee Henderson’s book The Guardian. But the thing that tripped me up is that same man would have driven me crazy in real life. Marcus was a bossy, alpha-male who expected everyone to do what he said. Okay, so he was a US Marshal and had a job to do, but still . . . LOL, if my husband was like that, neither of us would be happily married. But for some reason heroes in fiction can get away with this type of behavior, and we love them all the more for it. I suppose it’s because we are able to get into their heads and see their loving intentions. To this day, I still adore Marcus. I was drawn to his strength, courage, tender heart, his desire to protect the heroine at all costs, his sense of justice, and most of all his values. Yet if he were real, he’d drive me nuts. J This got me to thinking about the heroes in the books I write. What is it that draws me…

I’ve always been a sucker for the lighthearted romantic stories, whether in book form or on the big screen. When I wrote my debut novel, Five Days in Skye, I wanted to create a fun, flirty novel that had just a touch of seriousness at the end. Naturally, when it came to the second book in the series, London Tides, I set out to write the same sort of thing. Funny thing about writing books, though…sometimes the characters take over without your permission. The hero, Ian MacDonald, had been introduced in Five Days in Skye, as somewhat of an antagonist—the rule-following older brother. But I knew there was a reason he had gone from the fun-loving athlete of his youth to a rule-following stick-in-the-mud. Deep down, the poor guy was heartbroken. But considering how much Ian had to offer to the right woman, how could his true love ever leave him? Enter Grace Brennan: a war photographer whose need to expose the injustices of the world were even more pressing than her love for Ian…a conflict that led her to leave him six months before their wedding. I’ll fully admit she’s an unlikely heroine for a romance: troubled, suffering from…

There seems to be a misconception about sweet romance. Sweet romances are not all bonnets and prairies. Nor are they about baking or chocolate, though that would definitely make for a delicious book. One that would probably have me reaching for bonbons with every page. As with any romance, sweet romances must have a satisfying ending. After all, a romance without a happily-ever-after is like a Starbucks without coffee. To help set the record straight, though, here are a few things you may or may not know about sweet romances. Sweet romances do not have sex. Or as I tell people, no bodice ripping. Okay, so you may have already figured this one out. However, as the name infers, sweet romances are loaded with romance. Two people falling in love. And isn’t that the best part of a romance novel anyway? In sweet romances, sexual tension, rather than sex itself, move the relationship and the story forward. By the end of the book, the reader knows the couple has a strong foundation to build a solid future together. Sweet romances have real people, with real problems. Just because a romance is sweet, doesn’t mean the characters are. They are flawed…

To me, shifter love is intense, commanding, and all consuming. When you have heightened senses it makes sense to me that everything you do is just that much more intense. So when a shifter falls in love, whether with a human or another shifter, it’s all about the passion and connecting. That is why I love writing about shifters. While I love any paranormal element in books that I read or write there is just something about a strong alpha male falling in love that draws me in. I enjoy the entire process from when our shifter meets his love interest, the internal struggle of putting his heart out, the moment he realizes he’d be lost without her, to the final confession of being in love. The bigger and badder the shifter the more fun it is to watch him fall. Am I right? Cole Babcock is the shifter in WOLF PACK, book five in the Shifter Chronicles series, which is my brand new release. Cole is one of those characters that thinks he likes being alone. Only to find out he had no idea what he was missing. He has his new position with the Shifter Coalition, new friends…

The SUMMER HEAT that is with 16 sexy stories by 16 bestselling authors, including Caridad Pineiro’s UNDER THE BOARDWALK, a scorching hot story of a husband and wife trying to rekindle the passion they once shared under the boardwalk. Now available at Amazon. Additional retailers coming soon! [see below] Join the SUMMER HEAT authors at their release party for a chance to win a Kindle Fire and lots of other prizes and fun. 16 All New Contemporary Romances from NY Times, USA Today, and International Bestselling Authors. Guaranteed to make your blood run hot. Passion, steamy nights, excitement, and suspense. Something to suit every reader’s taste. Grab a cool drink (you’ll need it!), find a hammock, and curl up for an unforgettable escape. Caridad Pineiro, UNDER THE BOARDWALK A passionate night under the boardwalk brought them together, but can Chase and Natalie rekindle that lost love in just one night? Nina Bruhns, FAST AND FLIRTY The top-secret package STORM Corps transporter Kade Maddox is hired to deliver turns out to be way more trouble—and a whole lot sexier—than he ever anticipated. Rebecca York, OUTLAW JUSTICE Will a surprise reunion with her old lover save her life when she flees from…

A couple of years ago I happened upon an interesting yard sale. It was made up entirely of books. Back in the olden days, before the advent of digital readers, a yard sale exclusively of books was like my own personal nirvana. I ended up buying an odd assortment of paper backs. They were mostly mysteries, some sci-fi, a few westerns (yes, I read them) and a couple of tame romances. When I got home, I found among the fiction, a book on home decorating according to the concept of Feng Shui. For young readers, Feng Shui was a really big thing fifteen years ago. I couldn’t imagine how the book made it into my purchases, but I was intrigued. And let’s face it…a book is a book. If it’s around, I’m probably going to read it. The first few chapters dealt with Chinese numerology and determining from your birth date and birth year, your element. I turned out to be the water element, meaning I would be most comfortable surrounded by gray and blue in my home. Quite content living in a house painted with warm brown tones, I kept reading. Sadly, I found being a water element was…

My teenage son and I have been discussing pop culture lately. Mainly, we’ve been chatting up how real life spices up entertainment and how different forms of entertainment feed off each other. (Books becoming movies is an example of this.) These discussion always end up focusing on characters, and we get into lively discussions about real and fictitious people, and how they would interact with each other, or how they would react in a different setting. My argument is usually that a hero would be heroic, no matter what setting they are put in. It is not the circumstances that make the hero, it is the inner strength they have that drives them to do the right thing. Did Catniss need to be in the Hunger Games to be selfless? No. She was already this way. How do you think she got into those gosh-awful games to begin with? So lets talk for a bit about my personal favourite heroes from pop culture. I’m going to list them off the top of my head, because if I have to think about it too much, then the character were probably not strong enough to stay with me for one reason or…