It’s time to travel across the pond with author Alexia Gordon to the land of shamrocks and leprechauns. Actually, we won’t be visiting any leprechauns, but ghosts and symphonies are another story. Alexia’s fictional world may not be magical, but her research and writing will happily engage cozy mystery readers from beginning to end in her Gethsemane Brown Mystery series. About Alexia Gordon A writer since childhood, Alexia Gordon continued writing through college but put literary endeavors on hold to finish medical school and Family Medicine residency training. Her medical career established, she returned to writing fiction. She won a Lefty Award, was nominated for an Agatha Award, and was chosen one of Suspense Magazine‘s best debuts of 2016. Raised in the southeast and schooled in the northeast, Gordon migrated to the southwest after a three-year stint in Alaska reminded her how much she needed sunlight and warm weather. After a time in the desert, she missed deciduous trees so she headed northeast to the Chicago area. She completed Southern Methodist University’s Writer’s Path program in Dallas, Texas. If pushed, she will admit Texas brisket is as good as Carolina pulled pork. Gordon enjoys classical music, fine whiskey, art, travel,…

Thank you so much for having me on Fresh Fiction today to chat about my young adult paranormal romance, THE THIRD KISS. For most people, paranormal fiction means vampires, werewolves, angels, and demons. Many novels in this genre borrow their mythology from Eastern European tales of blood sucking rulers, Ancient Greek stories of shape shifters, or fallen heavenly creatures from the Apocrypha. It’s unusual, however, to see a paranormal story drawing on Old Testament mythology, yet THE THIRD KISS does exactly that. THE THIRD KISS is set in present day Sydney, Australia, and follows high school graduates Jonas and Cora as they fight hell-sent demons along with their attraction for one another. This modern story is woven around a fictional curse that first reared its devious head three thousand years ago in the Old Testament tale of Amnon and Tamar. Theirs is a scandalous story in which King David’s beautiful daughter Tamar is shamed and cast out of her father’s palace, all because of the misogynistic actions of her half brotherAmnon. Like that’s not enough of a slap in the face by fate, Tamar also eventually goes mad. Here’s where I got to thinking – a bit of an occupational…

“The rifle was comfortable in his hands. Familiar. Less like a complex weapon than like an extension of his arms and eye, a part of him. It made him feel complete, filling the emptiness that lived inside of him.” Hades is one of the four main characters in my YA thriller, Project Pandora. Unlike the other brainwashed teenagers in the Project, Hades is conscious during his kills. He doesn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, because that is exactly what he has spent his entire life being trained to do. When I first began writing about Hades, I didn’t intend for him to be a sympathetic character. He was supposed to be a villain with no redeeming qualities, who would eventually get exactly what was coming to him. However, as I delved into his viewpoint, I realized that in his own way, Hades is not a villain, at least not in the traditional sense. His situation is even more tragic than the rest of the characters’ situations. He did not begin life as a monster—he was reshaped into one. And even as he tries to convince himself that he is the one in control, he has close to no control over…

When seventeen-year-old Haley Cooke goes missing out of her high school, leaving behind only a chilling note that says “if you’re reading this, I’m already dead,” FBI Profiler Evelyn Baine is put on the case. Initially, police thought Haley was grabbed by a stranger, but as Evelyn digs deeper, it seems that the people closest to her are all hiding something. There’s Haley’s mom, Linda. On the surface, she seems to be the devastated parent of a missing child, doing everything she can to bring Haley home. But is Linda more interested in being on the news than finding her daughter? And could there be any truth to her ex-husband’s claims that Haley was so unhappy at home she ran away? Then there’s Haley’s dad, Bill. He seems completely unconcerned about Haley’s disappearance, and Evelyn has to wonder: is it because he really believes Haley is safe on her own, or is he calm because he knows exactly where Haley is for a much more sinister reason? There’s also Haley’s step-father, Pete, a new addition to Haley’s life she didn’t seem to like. Haley’s father claims he’s abusive, but there’s no shortage of bad blood between the new husband and…