In addition to my love for romantic suspense, I have a fondness for non-fiction. Really, truth can be stranger than fiction. I think research is fun, but more importantly, I wanted my story to feel as real as possible. SURRENDER AT THE BORDER takes place mostly in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico, and my research led to some fascinating and scary things that really exist. Here are six things about SURRENDER AT THE BORDER that are real: The Feds vs. the Librarians. Surrender opens with B.J., an ATF agent, investigating a case by getting information from library computers. This is in opposition of everything Callie, the head librarian, believes in. This conflict comes directly from my own days as a librarian. Even before the Patriot Act, law enforcement officials targeted the reading habits of people who were, for one reason or another, suspicious. Librarians saw this as a violation of every citizen’s constitutionally protected right to privacy and developed policies and procedures to handle just this kind of situation. So if you see a television program where a cop goes up to a librarian and asks what so-and-so has been reading, a real librarian would refuse or at least make a fuss….

The adage that life is a juggling act is a cliché for a reason. It’s true. It’s so stupendously true that it’s a joke. I mean, seriously, is there anyone out there who is actually on top of said ball, at least without the stupid thing periodically rolling out from under them and putting them on their butts? (Exercise balls, I’m looking at you.) The truth is, we juggle. And my juggling goes something like this. Monday: I have all week to do all the things. I make a schedule…on a spreadsheet. Writing, homeschooling, meal prep, housework…it’s all neatly partitioned by day and allotted with help from the weather forecast. Beautiful day? The kids will spend it outside, so that is when I’ll write all the words. I’ll get ahead, I will! Cold rainy day? Homemade soup it is! I got this. Tuesday: I spent Monday making that pretty spreadsheet. I’m behind, a little, but all is not lost. Only the kids can smell “flustered” like they can smell burgers grilling, so suddenly I’m the most popular person in the world. Even my teenagers won’t stop talking to me. This feels like one of those awesome parenting wins, so I…

A New Southern Mystery from Mary Ellis A cryptic plea from a childhood friend sends Price Investigations to Memphis, land of the Delta blues. When they arrive they find Danny dead and a lifestyle not in keeping with the choirboy they remember. Nate and Nicki follow clues into smoky clubs, trail potential stalkers, and confront drug traffickers to find a killer, in a world where your friends are all you have left. About WHAT HAPPENED ON BEALE STREET WHAT HAPPENED ON BEALE STREET is an exciting addition to the Secrets of the South Mysteries from bestselling author Mary Ellis. These standalone, complex crime dramas follow a private investigator’s quest to make the world a better place solving one case at a time. A cryptic plea for help from a childhood friend sends cousins Nate and Nicki Price from New Orleans to Memphis, the home of scrumptious barbecue and soulful blues music. When they arrive at Danny Andre’s last known address, they discover signs of a struggle and a lifestyle not in keeping with the former choirboy they fondly remember. Danny’s sister, Isabelle, reluctantly accepts their help. She and Nate aren’t on the best of terms due to a complicated past,…

A run-down motel in a small town isn’t the most likely place for a romance novel to begin. But the moment I saw it, I knew it was the perfect starting point for GETTING IT BACK, the third book in my Red Hot Russians series. One thing I love about being a writer is that thunderclap of inspiration, when vague ideas suddenly crystalize into characters, scenes and conflicts. In the spring of 2014, ideas had been turning in my head for weeks. I knew GETTING IT BACK’s hero was Misha, an Olympic champion skater whose post-skating life hadn’t gone as planned. But I didn’t know much else. A road trip, on a dark and stormy day—on my way to a wake, no less—provided the answer. A detour took me off the interstate onto a two lane highway running through Midwestern farm country. The weather was ominous—dark, low hanging clouds that can spawn thunderstorms and even tornadoes. Listening to static-y country music on the radio, I drove into a small town, and passed an old motel. Its sign was lit and glowed against the gloomy sky. An empty swimming pool was surrounded by a fence and looked like it hadn’t been…

This may be the one and only time our name are ever mentioned in a New York Times article ! Now isn’t this just too cool? And it’s for such a great cause: helping our vets. The three of us couldn’t be prouder. Plus, Laura Holson, the reporter who wrote the piece, was VERY kind in putting up the info on the charity. She didn’t have to do that—but bless her, too. Read down to the part about the making of a cover and find Chris Keniston and myself, Lindsay McKenna — we worked jointly on the cover. Susan Stoker, in the meantime, was on an ocean cruise, unavailable, so the task fell to us to create it without her valuable input. We chose Jason Baca as our model. Tammy Seidick of TammySeidickDesigns.com, took our direction and did a fabulous job. We made a good team. Chris should be lauded for making the cover what it looks like in the final presentation — I just put in ideas, suggestions here and there ;-). We almost forgot to put the dog tags on Jason—that was my biggest add to the cover, haha. We all think it’s a great cover! Fingers crossed…

I’ve always dreamed of traveling to New York City. Ever since I set my Historical Romances there—Edge of Freedom Series (Bethany House Publishers)—I’ve imagined what it must have been like to walk the streets a hundred years ago, to see the ships sail into the harbor and witness the eager faces of the people as they stepped into America from Ellis Island. Alas, life intervened, and the trip I’d thought to take was pushed to the back burner. The desire to travel to the places I wrote about stayed with me, however, which is why I was so excited when my husband offered me the chance of a lifetime…the chance to choose where I wanted to go on vacation. Anywhere. Just the two of us. A second honeymoon, of sorts. While I appreciated the offer, I really couldn’t believe that my hubby was going to let me choose our destination with entirely no input from him. “I get to pick?” I asked, a trifle skeptically. “Anywhere at all?” “Absolutely,” he said. “Anywhere you want to go.” With a broad spectrum of places to choose from spread out before me, I found I didn’t even hesitate. I knew where I wanted…

THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE is an incredibly special book to me. It was inspired by three things: a trip that I took to Berlin, a true story about an old palace in the former East Germany and another true story about a woman who abandoned her apartment in Paris in 1940 on the eve of the Nazi invasion, leaving an un-spoilt treasure trove which was only re-discovered when she died in 2010. All of these things left me asking questions- and with a real desire to not only find out more, but to get to some sort of truth and understanding about the past- and in order to do that, I wanted to delve beyond the facts. So- I wrote a novel. But first, what were the facts that I had? Let’s start with Paris. In 2010, an apartment was re-discovered in the ninth arrondissement that had been abandoned for seventy years after the owner- a ‘Madame de Florian’- fled on the eve of the Nazi invasion. There is nothing unusual about the fact that the woman never returned to Paris, but what was extraordinary, was the fact that Madame de Florian left her apartment exactly as it was…

Although every female booklover can’t wait to read about the hero, whether a handsome cowboy with a soft spot for orphans, a rakish marquis who needs an heir, or a sophisticated jewel thief who donates his loot to charity, it’s the heroines that stick with readers. Here are the 5 characteristics for heroines that readers will sometimes love/sometimes hate, but will always remember long after they give the book to their mother-in-law. Heroines must be flawed. No one liked the girl in high school with perfect hair/clothes/teeth/car/parents…fill in the blank. Unless she happened to be us, that girl was annoying. Make sure heroines have plenty of nice attributes, but there also must be things for her to work on. My heroine in WHAT HAPPENED ON BEALE STREET hates people in her “personal space.” Beth Kirby often balks or runs in the opposite direction if people get too close. Heroines recognize their flaws and strive to overcome them. Just like we don’t like perfection, we also don’t like women who keep making the same mistake over and over. Consider the famous anti-heroine Scarlett O’Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND. Although Margaret Mitchel gave us plenty of reasons to hate her, no…