Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Ann Marie Walker | Author-Reader Match: LUCKY LEAP DAY
Author Guest / January 18, 2022

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 you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Ann Marie Walker!  Writes: I’m the author of 9 novels, ranging from romantic suspense to romantic comedy. My latest release is LUCKY LEAP DAY a rom-com about a woman who gets caught up in the Irish tradition of women proposing to men on Leap Day and ends up bringing home a husband instead of a wool sweater and a set of souvenir pint glass. About: I’m a fan of fancy cocktails, anything chocolate, and ’80s rom-coms, and my superpower is connecting any situation to an episode of Friends. You can find me on Facebook or Instagram and at AnnMarieWalker.com, where I would be happy to talk to you about alpha males, lemon drop martinis, or Chewbacca, the Morkie who is kind enough to let me sit on his couch. I attended the University of Notre Dame and currently live in Chicago. What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: My ideal reader * loves to laugh * is a sucker for a guy with a hot accent and…

Timothy Miller | Favorite Art-Heist Stories
Author Guest / January 18, 2022

The days when you could walk out of the Louvre with the Mona Lisa under your arm are over. There are all sorts of safeguards now—electric eyes, pressure sensors, lasers, which in the movies at least, must usually be overcome by dangling the thieves from the ceiling. I love art-heist stories. They always pose a question: what’s real and what’s fake? What’s the difference between an original and a copy? They also sketch out over the years not only a change in technology but a change in ethics. Here are five of my favorites. How to Steal a Million–1966 We start with the soufflé, extremely light, and, as you would expect of any film starring Peter O’Toole and Audrey Hepburn. It just oozes charm. Surprisingly, under its candy coating, it also oozes authenticity. The forger(Hugh Griffiths, Hepburn’s papa) has made certain to dig up authentic dirt from Arles to add to his Van Gogh forgery. And it takes only a chip of paint from said forgery undergoing chemical analysis to prove it’s a fake. And it’s the forger’s hubris that places him in danger, which is often the case in real life, where it’s the risk of being discovered that…

Lizzie Damilola Blackburn | Exclusive Interview: YINKA, WHERE IS YOUR HUZBAND?
Author Guest / January 18, 2022

Danielle Jackson: Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Lizzie! Congrats on the publication of YINKA, WHERE IS YOUR HUZBAND?. How does it feel to have your debut novel out in the world? Can you tell us about your journey into publishing?  Lizzie Damilola Blackburn: Thank you! It feels absolutely insane. (In a good way!) A few years back, no one, not even my other half had read YINKA, WHERE IS YOUR HUZBAND? in its entirety, so it’s kind of surreal that people, complete strangers, will now be reading it. It’s also very exciting because when I was writing YINK, I used to wander around bookstores and visualize my book on the shelves, and now, I’m a published author!  In terms of my journey to publication, it took me roughly five years. YINKA started off as a short story on a blog that I ran in 2014-15. The decision to turn it into a novel came after I met an incredible author called Jackie Ley. She felt as though the concept – a British Nigerian woman feeling the pressure to settle down – would make a brilliant novel. However, I had no formal writing experience, so I took on the challenge, blindly. As…