Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Maggie Wells | A Sporty Backstory for Love Games
Author Guest / April 30, 2018

When people find out I’ve set my Love Games series in the world of college athletics, they often ask if I played myself. I wish. Like most jock-types, my dreams of glory started early but were met with adversity. I had a Dorothy Hamill haircut and a pink skating dress my big sister sewed for me, but our local ice rink closed just as I was getting my skates under me. My father covered our back yard in asphalt and installed a regulation goal for my five older brothers. I could (and still can) hit a backwards bucket shot from anywhere within the three-point arc. Even in my First Communion dress. Sadly, I topped out at 5′ 4″, which made me an easy mark for any player blessed with greater height. I can’t tell you how many times I swatted air when trying to get at a jump ball in seventh grade. And spiking over a volleyball net? Forget it. I can bump and set with the best of them, but this girl can’t jump. Despite being vertically challenged, my love of all things sporty has never abated. I live for college football season each year. I can bemoan the…

Diana Muñoz Stewart | Ways To Help
Author Guest / April 30, 2018

Justice and Sandesh are heroes who fight for what’s right, but what can readers do to help champion justice in their own communities? I’m lucky enough to have wonderful people in my life who are active in volunteering in the community. I’d like to share some of the ways these people, and I myself, have contributed to justice and caring within our communities. Make care kits for the homeless-This is probably something more suited to people who live in or around big cities but recognizing the needs of our homeless not only helps restore their dignity, but it replenishes our humanity. Giving credit where credit is due, this idea was not suggested, but demonstrated to me by a couple of dear people in my life. Last year while visiting NYC with my friends, one of our group, author Margaret Reyes-Dempsey, handed out care packages that she’d put together for homeless people. She purchased needed supplies, including hand wipes and socks. She carried these care packages in a backpack distributing them as we went. Around the same time, my daughter, a public defender, did the same thing—handing out thick socks, hats, and gloves to people at her courthouse. Care kits that…

Marie Bostwick | Fierce Beyond 50
Author Guest , Fierce After 50 / April 27, 2018

The older I get, the more I realize that those changes keep coming. Sometimes they bring joy. Sometimes they bring sorrow. Sometimes, it’s a little of both. Part of why I started Fierce Beyond 50 was to create a community for us to not only embrace those changes together—the good, the bad and the ugly. This past month, we explored some of the harder changes in life, a few strategies for combating brain fog and mental fatigue, and the importance of taking on new challenges that scare us a little bit. HOW ONE WIDOW’S RITUALS HELPED HER NAVIGATE THE STAGES OF GRIEF AND HEALING PROCESS Grief and healing is a personal journey for everyone, especially after the loss of a spouse. There is no one-size-fits all remedy. Journalist and speaker Meg Cox shares how she leaned on rituals during the grieving process and what she’s learned from widowhood. FITTING IN AND MAKING FRIENDS AFTER A MOVE It’s easy to feel untethered after a move to a new town. For women, it can be especially difficult since we are so relationship-oriented and many times we leave friends behind during relocation. I consider myself a pro at this, having moved more than 20…

Stacy Wise | Follow Your Own Path To Your Dreams
Author Guest / April 25, 2018

Like Katie Capwell, the female protagonist in my new new novel, MAYBE SOMEONE LIKE YOU, my path to following my dreams wasn’t a straight line. No, it was more of a wild zigzag, like a trail made by a frantic mouse in a maze. The idea of becoming a writer was always teasing me with its alluring pull, but writers were “other” people—fancy people who wore blazers with elbow patches. (Okay, so my childhood idea of a writer stuck with me through adulthood, even though I knew better.) Upon graduating from UCLA, I began working in television casting. It was a (relatively) seamless flow from interning at NBC to working as an assistant to a casting director. The first show we cast fizzled, but the next show we worked on—one that people mistakenly called The Exiles in its infancy stage—became a huge hit. Soon, people were no longer calling it anything but its correct name, The X-Files. Through the years, I was promoted, and then I moved to a different casting company as a casting director. The job was amazing. No other position would’ve allowed me to meet so many individuals from all walks of life. They told me their…

Cathy Skendrovich | Write What You Know
Author Guest / April 25, 2018

Writers are like magpies. They gather their own experiences, couple them with tons and tons of research, and come up with a distinctive realm that they hope will draw readers into their stories. How do they do it? The old adage, “Write What You Know” holds a lot of merit. As an author, I try to follow it whenever I can. For example, I don’t set my stories in Paris, because I’ve never been there. I couldn’t do the city, or the people, justice. And as much as I love to read Regencies, I’ve only been to England once. That doesn’t make me an expert on all things British. However, I do know the United States, especially California. Being a native Californian, I’ve travelled up and down and all around this state. Coincidentally, that’s where my latest release, UNDERCOVER WITH THE NANNY, takes place. The heroine, Kate Munroe, lives in a little beach community near the border of California and Mexico. I haven’t been down that way in a long time. When I did my research, I found that the town of Imperial Beach was the closest to the Mexican border. I scoured pictures of it on the internet, and…

Beth Anne Miller | Inspiration for UNDER A STORM-SWEPT SKY
Author Guest / April 25, 2018

I’ve been fortunate enough to do a lot of traveling, and my travels have heavily influenced my writing. My first book, INTO THE SCOTTISH MIST, was a time-travel romance that was inspired by a road trip in Scotland in 2005. Okay, I didn’t time travel, but when I looked upon the sapphire-blue expanse of Loch Ness with the ruins of Urquhart Castle standing sentinel over it, the mist-enshrouded hills of Glencoe, and the numerous standing stones on Orkney, I thought that if magic was possible anywhere, it would be in Scotland. My second book, A STAR TO STEER HER BY, is a romance set on a schooner during a semester at sea program. It was inspired by my own experiences in a similar program in my sophomore year of college. My new book, UNDER A STORM-SWEPT SKY, came about after I hiked Scotland’s West Highland Way, a ninety-six-mile trail that runs from Milngavie, just outside of Glasgow, to Fort William. I’d been to Scotland a few times since that road trip over a decade ago, and in 2015 I decided I wanted to see that incredible landscape on foot. Research led me to a company that does guided treks on…

Samantha Chase | Digging into the ‘Montgomery Brothers’
Author Guest / April 25, 2018

By Susan Gorman Samantha Chase is my favorite contemporary author. I love her Montgomery Brothers series featuring a matchmaking uncle and his sons, nephews and nieces. William Montgomery’s charming personality and his schemes captivated me and I couldn’t wait to see which couple would be featured in the next novel. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to share breakfast with Samantha Chase when she visited The Boston area last weekend! Over orange juice and omelets, we talked about the Montgomery family… Susan Gorman: I was surprised to learn that the Montgomery series was a trilogy—WAIT FOR ME, TRUST IN ME 
and STAY WITH ME featuring Lucas, Jason and Mac Montgomery— and that it was indie published! It seems like a lifetime ago that I first released WAIT FOR ME! Oh my goodness, I had no idea what I was in for when I introduced the Montgomerys! This was the series that really was the breakout for me. Susan Gorman: Can you tell us how the series developed into nine books, and about the journey from indie to traditional publishing? Honestly, I never envisioned the series going beyond the original three. That was the plan – a trilogy. Readers were very…

Jane Godman | Why Choose Paranormal?
Author Guest / April 24, 2018

I read and write other genres of romance, but paranormal calls me back time after time. I do write about werewolves and vampires, but my romances feature other paranormal races as well. Faeries, elves, dryads, necromancers, phantoms even gods and demons. Paranormal romances are as varied as contemporary or historical romances. They feature equally damaged and diverse characters. They are not just about fangs and fur. They can be steamy or sweet, dark and angsty, or quirky and funny. Readers of paranormal romance know what they like. Many of them started reading this genre because they like vampires or werewolves and they still have a preference for their first choice. They may stray and read mermaid or unicorn stories, but they will return to their favorite themes. Just as readers of contemporary romance will know if they prefer billionaires or firefighters and historical romance readers will know if their preference is for regency rakes, pillaging Vikings, or kilted Highlanders. I think it’s precisely because paranormal takes us away to a fantasy world that it appeals to us so deeply. Fairy tales captured us as children (and as adults). I still read fairy tales, they are just darker now. Wouldn’t the…

Piper J. Drake | True Heroes Foods IRL!
Author Guest / April 24, 2018

In April of 2017, I went to Hawaii for a long weekend to research locations, people, and food on Oahu. For readers new to my books, I try to make my stories action-packed with robust love stories and there’s always at least one character with an intense appreciation for food. Oahu has some great local dishes and here’s a bit of insight into the research I did on each of them. Some of these might pop up in TOTAL BRAVERY, or my characters might enjoy them in future books. Loco Moco This meal hits all the right spots either late at night, early in the morning, or just about any time of day. It comes in many variations but the basic concept is white rice topped with one or more hamburger patties, a runny fried egg, and brown gravy. It’s savory and rich, hot and filling. Matthew J. Drake, our friend (we’ll call him The Roaming Artist), and I tried loco moco in several places at several times of day. Our hands-down favorite was late night at the Rainbow Drive-In served simple, with no-frills, on a Styrofoam plate and eaten with plastic cutlery. It was amazing. Actually, we didn’t get…

Dale Mayer | Corey: SEALs of Honor Excerpt
Excerpt / April 24, 2018

COREY by Dale Mayer SEALs of Honor #16 A voice from the past cries out for help and Corey finds himself reunited with the only woman who’d ever rocked his world straight off the axis. But twelve years is a long time apart. Both of them have moved on, but, tragically, Angela is no longer the lighthearted woman he once knew and loved. Caught in a nasty divorce and custody battle, Angela will do anything to keep her son with her. After seven years of a rocky marriage, she’s only just beginning to figure out what kind of a man her husband truly is. Angela makes it clear to Corey she doesn’t want or need his help. She’s got her own insurance to secure her case. But Corey is determined to shield his old flame anyway because she doesn’t seem to realize her “insurance” is more than likely to get her dead sooner rather than later. Given that Corey’s up against a man with no intention of letting his son go, it’s a race to see who ends up in a casket first. Romance Military [Valley Publishing, On Sale: April 10, 2018, e-Book, ISBN: 9781773360690 / eISBN: 9781773360683] Buy COREY:…