Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Magnolia Smith | Making Perfect Beignets
Author Guest / May 25, 2016

If you’re familiar with cozy mysteries, you’ll know that these whodunits, often with culinary themes have recipes used in the story included in the book. My latest novel, TELL ME NO LIES is not a cozy mystery, however it does have a culinary theme betwixt the romance and danger. Rain Howard, the main character in my romantic suspense novel opens a beignet and coffee cafe. In the story, the recipes she uses were handed down from her grandmother who received them from her mother and so on. Rain’s grandmother is a descendant of a famous New Orleans quadroon, infamous for her beauty and her beignets. A quadroon referred to a person with 1/8th African parentage in the late 19th and early 20th-century New Orleans. Quadroons were involved with placage – a recognized extralegal system in New Orleans (and other places) in which ethnic European men entered into the equivalent of common-law marriages with women of color. These women owned homes and raised their children on Rampart Street. It’s a small part of the back story in TELL ME NO LIES, but one I plan on exploring in another historical romance series. But in the meantime, I wanted to share the…

M. Clarke | Top 5 Sexiest Men Alive
Author Guest / May 25, 2016

When I was a little girl, I didn’t pay attention to what I wore. I put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I had no sense of fashion, nor did I care. Toward the end of my high school years was when I started to be interested in fashion and makeup. I enjoyed flipping through Vogue and Glamour magazines. And a little part of me wished I could live the lifestyle of a runway model or work in the fashion industry world. So, I decided to write about it. Something Great series is based on two brothers, Maxwell and Matthew. They took over their parent’s fashion magazine business called Knight Fashion. Hot alpha males, but sweet and loving, they know how to swoon their women as they live in the fast, rich life of Glamour and scandal. Then afterward, I wrote a spin-off based on the models, and I thought to title the cover SEXIEST MAN ALIVE, and book two is titled SEXIEST COUPLE ALIVE. The cover even looked like a magazine. I met Nathan Weller at Utopia convention and thought he would be perfect for my cover. I was thrilled when he agreed. When you get a…

Katee Robert | The Relationship is FAKE!
Author Guest / May 25, 2016

The fake relationship trope is one of my favorites out there. You typically have two people who are at least somewhat known to each other—often friends—who each have their own goals that the fake relationship is serving. So, in honor of FOOLPROOF LOVE’s upcoming release, I’m sharing my top three favorite fake relationship movies. In no particular order (because it was impossible for me to decide!): The Proposal: This one is gold. You have Ryan Reynolds, who’s a favorite of mine across the board, and Sandra Bullock who’s even more of a favorite, and they get married to keep her from being deported. She’s been singularly awful to him for years (she’s his boss) and seeing her out of her element and him realizing she’s not a total monster when they’re in Alaska… Love, love, love. Betty White as his grandma is just the icing on the cake. The Wedding Date: Who hasn’t wanted to show an ex that they had moved on? In this movie Debra Messing is so dang relatable because she’s a hot mess. And she’s faced with this to-order boyfriend she’s paid for to attend the wedding with her, and he’s so suave and cool and…