Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Chantal Fernando | Exclusive Interview: CUSTOM LOVE
Author Guest / August 24, 2021

Danielle: Welcome back to Fresh Fiction, Chantal! We are so excited to have you here. Congrats on the release of your new book CUSTOM LOVE. What is it about?   Chantal:  Thank you for having me! Custom Love is Trade and Nadia’s story, and is a romantic suspense full of surprises, love and second chances. CUSTOM LOVE is the latest book in your Fast and Fury series, a spinoff of your Knights of Fury series. What do you love about writing in this world you’ve created?  I love that the books have MC elements, but also give me more room to play. I love the characters and the friendships between them. Nadia and Trade are characters we’ve seen throughout the series and are finally getting their own story told. What are some of the challenges of bringing together two characters readers already feel like they know? Did Nadia and Trade surprise you in any way while writing their love story?   They did surprise me. I think the two of them surprised each other, too, and were meant to be together. Trade is a single dad and has experienced tragedy in his life. How do you think these aspects of…

Hanna Earnest | Author-Reader Match: ALL THE BEST NIGHTS
Author Guest / August 24, 2021

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors as a reader you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Hanna Earnest! Writes: Romance with big feelings and big moments, like ALL THE BEST NIGHTS, which pits privacy against paparazzi as two musicians try to keep their contemporary marriage of convenience from the tabloids. Rock-star-with-writer’s-block Bran Kelly and pop-star-on-the-rise Nelle are tired of the cost of fame, so they elope to have a secret: something off the record, something just for them. But when real passions threaten the fake feud they devise to protect their pact, they have to decide if keeping their secret is worth staying apart. About: A South-Sider first and a Chicagoan second, my interests include: overhyping my ability to ice skate (and other seasonal activities), the table with the outlet at the coffee shop, and prescription sunglasses. I love to cook and not clean, spam the group chat with inspirational Real Housewife gifs and/or Walt Whitman quotes, and—while my dog is asleep and my daughter is occupied—write books I want to read. What I’m looking for in…

Georgie Blalock | Exclusive Excerpt: THE LAST DEBUTANTES
Author Guest / August 23, 2021

“Mr. Astor, a pleasure to see you this evening,” the dark-coated maître d’ greeted, flashing a wide smile beneath his thin mustache. “A pleasure to be here. Anyone we should be concerned about inside? We have the Premier’s niece, Miss Katherine Ormsby-Gore, Miss Dinah Brand, and Miss Christian Grant.” “Michael, don’t tell him who we are.” Katherine glanced around as if anyone who was mingling nearby might care or notice. “Don’t fret, Mr. Rossi won’t tell a soul you’ve been here.” “If I were so indiscreet we’d be closed in a month,” Mr. Rossi assured them. “Not to worry, ladies, no one of concern to any of you is here tonight. Should one arrive, I’ll notify you at once. We don’t like awkward scenes at the 400 Club.” “How does he know who we should and shouldn’t be worried about?” Valerie whispered to Jakie. “Mr. Rossi knows more about people’s lineage than Debrett’s. Don’t worry, you’re in capable hands.” “Table forty-eight, John.” He handed them off to a young waiter, who led them into the heart of the small and dimly lit club. Valerie and the girls gaped at the pillars holding up the low ceiling and the dark silk…

Robin Bielman | Exclusive Excerpt: WRITTEN FOR YOU
Author Guest / August 23, 2021

Hi everyone! This scene picks up after Cam and Reese have just played a game of This or That with his brothers and things got a little sexy. He’s offered to walk her back to the guesthouse where she’s staying on his family’s property… “I’ll walk you back,” Cam said, making her jump. She hadn’t heard him follow her. “You don’t need to do that.” “I know.” They stepped onto the porch together. “About what just happened…” he trailed off, hands in the front pockets of his stylish sweatpants as they continued toward the guesthouse. “It was nothing. We got a little carried away is all. I call it the Nash influence.” “The Nash influence?” “Yes, he loves to infer dirty and sexual things, which in turn gets the people around him thinking them.” “Okay, but in this case…” They’d gone there on their own. Of course Mr. Smarty McSmartyPants would realize that. She spun and faced him, took backward steps. “Sugar Rush.” He raised an eyebrow. Just one brow, in that sexy way of his. “When a person eats sugar, the brain produces a surge in dopamine, which in turn makes them think of pleasurable things and then sometimes…

Alicia Hunter Pace | Exclusive Excerpt: SWEET AS PIE
Author Guest / August 20, 2021

ExPro hockey player, Jake Champagne, and artisan pie maker, Evie Pemberton, were best friends from childhood until Jake ghosted on the friendship when he fell for Evie’s beauty queen cousin. Now, as Jake recovers from a messy divorce, they have reconnected and are struggling to find their footing in this new relationship. Can they get their old friendship back, or do they want something more? In this except, they have been shopping and a salesperson mistook them for a married couple. *** “I can’t believe she thought we were married.” Jake laughed. “I could have told her you were in my wedding, all right. You just weren’t the bride.” And in a split second, the laughter died on Evie’s face. “Jake, I wasn’t.” She hadn’t been in that Cecil B. Demille production of a wedding? At least fourteen women had marched down that aisle wearing dresses the color of Bazooka bubble gum; surely Evie had been one of them. “You weren’t? I could have sworn…” How could he have missed that? Evie smiled a sad little smile. “To be fair there was a lot of pink tulle and ruffles going on with those dresses. It was hard to see who…

Abigail Owen | Title Challenge: THE TRAITOR
Author Guest / August 19, 2021

Hey, y’all! My Name is ABIGAIL OWEN and I’m so excited to be here today to share a little bit about my new book THE TRAITOR with Fresh Fiction’s fun Title Challenge. This bad-ass dragon shifter is going to meet his match in a bundle of sunshine and sarcasm who desperately needs his help. Problem is, he has a bounty on his head, and she’s off limits. Let’s go…. T is for Traitor. Rune knew the only way to protect the innocent was to turn his back on everything he had spent his life fighting to protect. H is for heart of gold. This grumpy anti-hero dragon shifter has one hidden somewhere. E is for ending. This book is the last of my Fire’s Edge series! * T is for trouble. Which is exactly what Hadyn is to Rune. He’s on the run after all. R is for rogue dragon. Possibly the most infamous rogue ever to turn his back on his kind. A is for admiration. Hadyn risks her life climbing a very tall mountain in winter to track him down. That takes guts. I is for intense. He’s a rogue dragon shifter y’all. They only come in one…

Heather McCollum | Exclusive Excerpt: THE HIGHLANDER’S PIRATE LASS
Author Guest / August 18, 2021

Beck watched the heavily gunned galleon sweep around the small isle, the wind filling its sails. After six months of patrolling the waters off the west coast of Scotland, Beck wouldn’t let this chance of capturing the most notorious French pirate slip past him. If the bastard outgunned them, he would use some intimidation to slow him down until Cullen could attack the Borreau from the other side. “Gavin,” he yelled, “are the men ready?” Gavin’s mouth dropped open, frozen, as he gazed past Beck. Beck pivoted on his boot in time to see… Eliza? The woman wore sailor’s clothing. No petticoats, but the breeches that she’d worn under her skirts. Tall boots hugged her shapely legs up past her knees. She wore a longish coat of wool and leather with an intricate braid trim, a white tunic, and a floppy hat over her hair. A crossbow swung by her side. She charged across the deck, Alice, who was also dressed in trousers, hurrying behind her with a lantern. “Holy Lord,” Rabbie said next to him. “Beck,” Drostan yelled, pointing at Eliza. As if he hadn’t seen her. Half his men had stopped to stare at the lass as she…

Roxanne Veletzos | Exclusive Excerpt: WHEN THE SUMMER WAS OURS
Author Guest / August 18, 2021

Three, four days in a row, Aleandro had been drawing the girl in the square. At times, it felt somehow wrong, as if he were stealing something from her, but what harm was there in it? It was the only hour in his long day when he felt unburdened, free. There were no demands of him here in the cool shade of the church, no brothers to feed, no fiddle to play, no one to answer to. It was only him and his charcoals and this face, this Botticelli face that inspired his hands to move as never before. When he first set his eyes on her all of five days ago, she stopped him in his tracks. She was beautiful, there was no denying it, but he’d seen plenty of beautiful women before. Unlike girls of her age, there was no flirtatiousness in her walk—she walked straight and powerfully, with purpose, a bit like a man—even though everything about her was feminine, the honey-blond tresses reaching down to her waist, the small feet inside the red sandals, the slender calves. At the café, she sat at a table under the geranium balcony and took off her sunglasses, and her…

Julia Justiss | History ReFreshed: The Extraordinary Far East
Author Guest / August 18, 2021

As lazy late summer beckons toward fall, we turn to stories about extraordinary women from the Far East, the circumstances, and actual characters of several based on real events. Beginning chronologically, John J. Healey’s THE SAMURAI’S DAUGHTER presents the unusual tale of a little-known episode in history.  In 1614, Japan sent a delegation to Spain to establish trade and cultural relationships with King Phillip III.  One member, samurai Shiro, became a popular figure at court and won the heart of a noble Spanish lady.  The story is narrated by their daughter, Soledad Maria, called Masako by her father, who is raised as both a samurai and a European.  After her mother’s death, Masako’s father decides to return them to Japan, sending them on a peril-filled journey halfway across the world.  Once back in Japan, they face new dangers from enemies at home.  Throughout this transition, Masako must decide who she really is—Spanish lady or samurai nobility.  Full of detailed descriptions of the customs and privileges of upper-class Europeans and Japanese at the time, Healey’s story illuminates Masako’s struggle between personal desires and family duty. Autumn Bardot’s DRAGON LADY brings us a fictionalized account of an amazing real-life woman in 18th…

Sarah Zachrich Jeng | Exclusive Excerpt: THE OTHER ME
Author Guest / August 17, 2021

I tell Eric I’m reorganizing the closet in the spare bedroom, which has the desired effect of getting rid of him. As soon as he’s gone to his “office,” the alcove downstairs where he keeps his computer, I start tearing through photo albums. I’m not looking for memories. I already have those. I recognize faces in the pictures, remember where and when most of them were taken. Prom, Senior Skip Day, the first years of college, before we stopped printing out snapshots. A few from our courthouse wedding. But those memories feel as though they belong to someone else. What I’m searching for is some emotional connection to the life I find myself living. But even with my entire history laid out in front of me, I’m unable to feel that it’s mine. I have the bed covered with memorabilia, photos and old birthday cards and handouts from college we kept for some reason, when Eric opens the door. I jump, my hands twitching with the compulsion to push everything into a single pile to hide what I’ve been doing. “I see you’ve made a lot of progress,” he says dryly. I laugh, the sound high-pitched and unnatural. “I got…