Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Carmen Falcone | Reading Outside of Your Comfort Zone
Author Guest / January 21, 2020

So, it happened. 2020 is here! We all talk about resolutions, but this got me thinking. As a reader, what are your resolutions? Could it be to read more books? To ditch paperbacks and embrace e-readers? To try a new-to-you author every month? Or, perhaps… reading outside your comfort zone. That’s one of my reader resolutions. I tend to favor m/f contemporary, erotic romance and mystery. It’s not that other genres don’t matter to me, they do, but we all have those kinds of books we’re drawn to. So, this year I will enrich my Goodreads Reading Challenge with more LGBTQ books, and who knows, maybe an inspirational or two (I tend to stay away from romances with no sex or closed-door sex).  I’m excited to open my mind to new reads and authors. Another resolution is…to listen to more audiobooks. I’ve come to love listening to audiobooks in my car. Guys, the amount of time I spend in my minivan (yes, glamorous! I know…) is ridiculous. When I have the children with me, I can’t listen to racy reads, but after I drop them off at school it’s fair game. And my third resolution as a reader is to…

Mariah Ankenman | My Perfect Day
Author Guest / January 21, 2020

What is a perfect day? It’s a different answer for everyone. For some, it’s a thrilling adventure at an amusement park with friends while for others it’s a quiet day at home in solitude. I think a perfect day is one that allows for resting and recharging, but also leaves time to enjoy the company of loved ones. If I had to choose, here is what my perfect day would look like: It would start with sleeping in as late as I want. I have two kids in the single digits so the “I’m hungry. She hit me. Mooooooomy wake upppppp!” Start early. After waking up I’d enjoy a warm cup of coffee and a yummy breakfast of fruit and cheese while reading a few chapters of a favorite book while the kiddos snuggle at my side with their own books. Reading doesn’t have to be a solitary enjoyment. Even if you’re reading different things, when you read together, it’s great family time. After enjoying a relaxing morning it would be time for a sandwich and snacks party with my friends where we’d munch while playing Tabletop games. Because it’s my day, the games on the docket would be Betrayal…

Melanie Munton | Author-Reader Match: LACE & LIES
Author Guest / January 21, 2020

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-ReaderMatch” where we introduce you to authors as a reader you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Melanie Munton! Writes: I’m bipolar with my contemporary sub-genres. Going back and forth between comedy and suspense, I like to mix it up between laughter and danger and sweet and intense. Lace & Lies, the first book in my new Brooklyn Brothers series, is ALL sexy thrills and lusty vibes with some witty sweetness thrown around here and there. But mostly, it’s urgent passion and those primal, desperate feels we all love to read about. About: Sarcastic, quirky lush—er, “wino”—who also identifies as a shut-in. Enjoys watching dry, offbeat comedies from the 80s and 90s and is shamelessly addicted to filthy romances. Unapologetic about my obsession with both Doritos and a great male derriere. Seeking readers who appreciate happily ever afters and cozying up with their favorite possessive book boyfriends. What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: You have a thing for a protective alpha male with a few scars You admire a sassy, ambitious heroine with a love for fashion…

James Ziskin | The Five Animals Ellie Stone Meets in Florence, Italy
Author Guest / January 21, 2020

I write the Ellie Stone mysteries, a series featuring a young newspaper reporter set in the early 1960s. In the seventh installment, TURN TO STONE (January 21, 2020), Ellie is in Florence, Italy for an academic symposium honoring her late father. But just as she arrives on the banks of the Arno, she learns that her host, Professor Alberto Bondinelli, has been fished out of the river, quite dead. Then a suspected rubella outbreak leaves ten of the symposium participants quarantined in villa outside the city with little to do but tell stories to entertain themselves. Making the best of their confinement, the men and women spin tales and gorge themselves on fine Tuscan food and wine. And as they do, long-buried secrets about Bondinelli and his checkered past rise to the surface, and Ellie must figure out if one or more of her companions is capable of murder. It was great fun—challenging, too—researching and writing about one of my favorite places on earth, Florence. There’s so much history and art to be found, literally, on almost every corner. Ellie, of course, has visited Florence before. In 1946, shortly after the end of the war, she accompanied her father on…